Way Over Yonder 2014: A magical Saturday for the (all-) ages, with Jackson Browne, Linda Perhacs, Chris Robinson, Leslie Stevens and more
Kevin Bronson on
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By Daiana Feuer
Day 2 of Way Over Yonder again brought an almost magical cross-generational mix to its lineup – the legendary Jackson Browne, 65, with his first new album in six years “Standing in the Breach” en route Oct. 7, and the rediscovered Linda Perhacs, 70, who went 44 years between album releases before her “The Soul of All Natural Things” came out earlier this year.
- ||| Photos by Carl Pocket, courtesy of Spaceland Presents
With fresh faces such as the Lone Bellow and Jamestown Revival, it gave Saturday a timeless, or at least time-honored, feel. Here are some highlights from the Main Stage and the Carousel Stage:
The festival’s final act was especially emotional for anyone over 50 years old in the audience. The dads of the crowd were more than happy to grab a younger person’s elbow and share anecdotes about the first time they saw Jackson Browne play whatever song he happened to be playing on stage at a given moment, even if the stories were a little made up. “I was THERE!,” Said one man at the bar. “Did you know it was Andy Warhol’s idea for Jackson Browne to finger-pick electric guitar on “These Days” when he recorded it with Nico for The Velvet Underground” (This is true. Nico and Browne were lovers at the time.) Reply: “Wow, you were really there?” Man with sweet tears filling his eyes: “Well, not ‘there’ there, but I was there, you know? That was my time. I just love this song!”
Jamestown Revival revved up the main stage, living up to the “revival” part of its name. The band had energy, big multi-layered sound, cowboy hats, a few handlebar mustaches, a real pretty Les Paul front and center that caught the afternoon sun’s gleam, and they drank the audience under the table, beer for beer. The organ player downed a whole bottle before he even sat down and could barely contain his need to dance. A “Born On The Bayou” cover put the audience in a sing-along tizzy. Songs about drinking, being homesick, loneliness, escaping to the woods and love gone wrong were rendered with lively swamp shack spiritualism. Appropriately, the band is from Magnolia, Texas. Population: 1,393.
Chris Robinson Brotherhood brought some California desert vibes to the seashore. Thank goodness, because no picture of Americana is complete without a few Joshua Trees dotting the horizon. Perhaps Robinson will remain best known for the Black Crowes, but this Brotherhood project is where he bares his soul. The songs were raw, romantic, a little sad and imbued with an atmosphere that whisked the audience away to a starry Mojave landscape. The musicians seamlessly wove psychedelic textures together. Guitar and keyboard solos crossed each other like lovers taking turns on top as they roll across the sand. Guitarist Neal Casal is a legend in his own right, so if you’ve got him on board, things are good. His lead-playing was complimented by keyboardist Adam MacDougall on a nice fat Moog. The Moog is like a Hammond organ being eaten by a robot, at least the way MacDougall played it. Best lyric: “My baby loves me like an autoharp / You see she plucks my mind and she strums my heart” (“Reflections On A Broken Mirror”).
Brooklyn’s The Lone Bellow wins for most passionate singing. Lead singer Zach Williams sang every word like he was going to die, cry or evaporate. Williams shared vocal duties with fellow bandmates Kanene Pipkin and Brian Elmquist, and some of the finest moments occurred when they converged on one mic together and crooned their hearts out. The band was remarkably in sync. Their trademark would have to be finding these little pauses in songs, allowing a very brief silence to reinforce the music’s vitality. While there were plenty of slow country tunes, it was very nice to see Pipkin use her mandolin as an instrument for rocking out. Williams said he’d never worn a T-shirt on stage before, but all the guys in the band had shown up in denim shirts and it was all too much for him. Of course, someone yelled, “Take off your shirt!” He didn’t, unfortunately.
Leslie Stevens is Silver Lake’s country gem. Her voice can warm a person’s heart while reaching deep into the pit of sadness that keeps us alive. “Sinner” simply slayed the Carousel Stage audience. It’s a beautiful heart-wrenching song and a testament to Stevens’ lyrical talent. “There’s bad in the best of us / There’s good in the rest of us,” she sang. Looking at the audience, the effect was universal. Everyone’s faces started to tilt a little to the left, goosebumps all around, and their eyebrows opened up like they were going to weep as Stevens dropped this gorgeous bomb of self-reflection on their minds. Finally the song ended and she alleviated the sweet grief by introducing a tune about a donkey and a rose.
Perhacs bore the entire weight of pastoral folk music on her shoulders for this festival, and it was so heavy her neck hurt. Actually, her neck hurt because she works as a dental hygienist, which is one of many facts the audience learned during her set. Five years ago, Perhacs re-entered the world of music. Her 1970 album “Parallelograms” is a psychedelic folk masterpiece. The title track is completely magical and was written as she drove down the Ventura Freeway after a day of being infused with music from all over the world. She told the audience she pulled over and tried to trace the colors and sounds she saw in the sky (but she was not high). Her two vocalists nailed the wild, weird vocal breakdown in the middle. The Carousel may be the smallest stage she’s played since her revival, but the audience was swept away by her songs about the sun, the moon, the universe, the stars, flowers, oneness, peace, love and light and all that transcendent goodness. Her introduction to “The Soul Of All Natural Things” was the best: “Scientists have found that light seems to exhibit a degree of consciousness. And at the center of the center of the world there is a degree of consciousness. I agree and I believe Bjork would agree also.”
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