Present Joys

Last night (3 may 2013), my sister and I drove to Nelsonville to see Bill Callahan play at Stuart’s Opera House. (A popular location for Drag City artists, apparently!) Instead of sitting in Stuart’s auditorium-style seats, we sat on collapsible chairs on the stage itself, and since we got there a little early, we had front-row seats.

I’d seen Bill Callahan play once before, in july 2011 at the Wexner Center in Columbus. The Nelsonville show had an identical guitar + guitar/occasional harmonica + bass configuration, and a very similar setlist: lots of Apocalypse songs and only one or two songs from the Smog era. The sound was beautiful—just the right volume to appreciate the artistic subtlety of the music. Especially Bill’s lead guitarist, who was super great. It was a fantastic time! Bill Callahan may not have changed much in the past two years, but my ability to appreciate him has only increased!

I went to another concert this past tuesday! Me and my good buddy Ian went to see Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. The show was at a venue called Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville, Ohio, which is a small town about 60 miles southeast of Columbus, in the middle of Wayne National Forest. The center of the little town was a grassy common area with buildings on all four sides of it. Stuart’s Opera House was in one of the buildings facing the grassy area, crammed in with a bunch of others.

We had an hour to kill before the show, and since there was reserved seating, we didn’t have to worry about getting in line. Ian and I walked all around the town center, looking for food. Being 7pm on a tuesday night, the area felt deserted. Virtually all the people we encountered had obviously come into town for the concert. That, and the fact that the town looked old and a little spooky, there was a very odd vibe. The only open places in the town center were a dark, smoky bar filled with people and a totally empty pizza place, on opposite sides of the block.

The people at the bar told us that they didn’t serve dinner food, but if we wanted, we could order at the pizza place and have it delivered to the bar. So that’s what we did: I got a sub and Ian got a little pizza. We ate it in the bar, because it seemed less lonely than the empty pizza place. And soon it was time for the show.

The inside of the venue was very cool; it was laid out like a fancy old theatre but it was furnished very sparsely (white plaster walls and a plain hardwood floor), which gave it an old-west kind of feeling. The concert hall itself was on the second floor of the building, the first floor being the lobby/refreshment area. They had beer and drinks and complimentary coffee.

The crowd was as I’d expected it: very diverse ages and sorts of people. There was, of course, a strong contingent of hipsters, but they were cool post-college-age hipsters who seemed sensible and interesting. While we were at the show, we talked to an old lady who was going to the show because her neighbor asked her to go, a redneck-sort of guy wearing camouflage unironically, and a 30-something woman who was smoking an e-cigarette and awkwardly compelled Ian to drag off it. So that shows the kind of diversity in the audience.

The opener was a band called Phantom Family Halo. They played a sort of neo-psychedelic indie rock that was rather dull. Will Oldham (who is Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy) came out and sang lead vocals on one of their songs, which was the best part of the set.

Soon it was time for BPB’s set, and everything became much more interesting. Will Oldham had a bunch of people with him: that Emmett Kelly guy from the Cairo Gang singing harmony parts and playing guitar, a girl singing backup vocals, and guys playing keyboard/harmonium, double bass, and drums. All of them were great, but best of all was Emmett Kelly. He seemed like the perfect sidekick-collaborator guy. His singing and playing was really great and nice, but he never stuck out too much or drew too much attention to himself.

I only really knew three or four of the songs he played. But it was the kind of concert where it didn’t matter if you knew the songs; like the symphony or a great film, it was just a beautiful thing to experience. By the end of the show, I was getting so into the music it felt like a chore to clap and stuff. Just a fantastic experience. My favorite part of the show was the performance of “Go, Folks, Go”, which was intimate and beautiful and wonderful. It was a great great time and if you have a chance to see this guy on tour, I highly recommend it!