This will be a unique post in the WLR annals because I’m going to depart from chronological order.
As I noted the other day in discussing the AWF, I wasn’t there as long as I had been in the past – so out of six bands listed here I only saw the last two.
While this duo plays often about town, this was the first time I saw The Haymans. I call it a duo because there’s two of them, but they also incorporate a backing track into their set to provide the rhythm section. That was a bit distracting and somewhat a bummer because I like watching musicians play.
Now if you liked watching a lot of women who had sampled the grape dance, this band was just the ticket.
If it was that “funky music” recorded between oh, maybe 1964 and 1994, and you can dance to it, On The Edge most likely plays it. And the fun part (besides watching the lead singer test out the limits of his wireless microphone circulating through the crowd) was seeing the migration up front.
Fast forward about a half-hour…
On the way out I met up with Jim Mathias, who was coming in to sing with these guys. He thanked me for being engaged (presumably in the political realm) so I thank him for supporting local music, which is much better for the sanity in this current climate.
Maybe this current climate needs a dose of part 2 of this piece. As I said, I usually work in chronological order but in this case I saved the best for last. I’ve often bent the “local rock” definition to fit national acts playing local shows, and the AWF weekend kicked off with a trio of Christian artists at the Civic Center. Here are some of my favorite shots from the concert featuring MercyMe, Tenth Avenue North, and Tim Timmons.
Timmons was the opening act, and while he only played three songs he got some assistance from the headliners at the end.
Tenth Avenue North is a high-energy group. It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t get a good shot of the singer milling through the crowd.
I actually liked them a shade more than I did MercyMe, but to each his or her own.
We ended up doing the Happy Dance to close out the night. It was a long show – 7:30 until almost 11.
So that, folks, was the weekend in local rock.