Humoring My Musical Obsession At...

the Mall At Fairfield Commons in 'Dayton' err, I mean Beavercreek. So the story is this...Leaker sends me an e-mail at work at 3:58. BlackBerry buzzes, and the subject 'Free Concert' immediately grabs my attention. Try to load the link on the double-B and it's EDGE connection is a slow load, so it's off to the office machine for a looky-lou. (A Looky-lou comes from the same nomenclature as a Squirty-Squirt, for those who were, and those who were not, curious.)

Dang it, office machine ScreenSaver locked the computer; insert SmartCard; type PIN; open Outlook; Load Linky-link. Scrolling down the page I see Tristan Prettyman, Marié Digby, and Matt Nathanson on the bill. Decision made: Leave work early, have Leaker's friend get us tickets, and drive home to pick up my camera.

I saw Marié Digby on Carson Daly back in August of '07 when she performed Umbrella an acoustic cover of a song by Rihanna and I loved it. Marié's version of the song was amazingly better than the original. (A comment I made vocal during her performance this evening, of which she was modestly appreciative.) When I caught her for the autograph, I congratulated her again on her version, and the fact that I had seen her on Carson's show. She mentioned that was one of her most nervous moments ever, but as is evident in the performance, she did a great job. Post Carson, I looker her up, and listened to some more or her music. When P and C came down to help paint the bedroom, I pulled out the acoustic late in the evening and we had a game of "see if Allen can play this along with this song before it's over." Throughout the course of that game, I made mention of the aforementioned MD version, and played along with the YouTube version that Carson had seen. More recently, at P and C's wedding, I mentioned it to MMcP and he impulse bought it on his iPhone via iTunes.

Michael had seen Matt perform at a Wittfest and recommended I check out Matt's work. I enjoyed it at the time, and realize I need to revisit it. He performed some solid vocals over his acoustic 6 and 12 strings that he must have had forever, as they show the wear marks akin to his playing style. Come On Get Higher is the song he's most recently released, and, to keep it PG, he stated that it was a song about 'ice cream' and how everyone loves 'ice cream.' He appeared to be the most jovial of the performers this evening, and I'd image that comes from his wealth of experience. I mentioned that Michael was arranging Come On Get Higher for the Wittmen Crew and if they ever record it, a copy should be sent along, as Matt was really interested in how it sounded. True artist, embracing derivative works. Love it.

Madly is a song I have on the list for Jimmy's Brother to cover, and I was trying to stay true to the album version. However, Tristan did a killer finger-picked version with just her, her acoustic, and Chris on the Congas. Little slower tempo, all fingers, no pick groove that I think I'll have to try out. Basically, it's this version she did while visiting the Mix 107.7 studio. Tristan was the one I was most interested in seeing. Since Marie isn't totally acoustically guitar focused, and Matt has been around releasing albums for a good while, they didn't make the #1 must see on the bill. Hello...X has a majority of full band arrangements on it, so I was interested in how she would pull off the acoustic versions. All the songs she did sounded superb played finger-style. (Although, she must have some fantastic callouses.) Talking to her after the performance, and mentioning our cover of Madly, she commented that the version she played took her forever to learn comfortably. I'll see what I can attempt, and maybe the Jimmy's Brother version will be some hybrid.

All in all, this was the best $10 I've ever spent on a concert ticket. 5th row seats and a chance to meet these artists to share in their enthusiasm about their craft is one of the best things for a music lover such as myself. The amount of time they spend on the road, doing random gigs in front of a Charlotte Russe below a Yankee Candle can't be any easy task, so given a chance to tell them their appreciated should always be taken.

P.S. Click through the image links to see the whole collection I posted on Flickr.

UPDATE: We made the Dayton Daily News webisite: