Folkin'

Jan. 29th, 2011 04:53 pm
apple_pathways: Whatever floats your boat! (Bad Music (Life's Too Short))
[personal profile] apple_pathways
First: great big THANK YOUS to [livejournal.com profile] housemaid79 and [livejournal.com profile] sabriel75 who sent me birthday treats! [livejournal.com profile] housemaid79 sent me a card with DOCTOR WHO drawings on it! Girl, your TARDIS is amazing! And [livejournal.com profile] sabriel75 sent me a copy of Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak (OMG, I remember this from childhood! I love it!), some candies, and delicious lipgloss. Thank you, love--you are truly amazing. ♥

Last night I attended the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. It was great fun! There were a lot of fantastic acts, and a few "meh, not for me" acts.

The Notable:
THE AVETT BROTHERS!
Vienna Teng with Alex Wong
Anais Mitchell
The Spring Standards

The Meh
Citizen Cope
The Paper Raincoat
Theo Katzman

(I feel like there was another act, but I can't remember...)

More talk of the show to come, but first:

An Open Message to All the Douchebags Who Insisted On Playing With Their Smartphones Throughout the Show:
COMMON COURTESY! Is there an app for that?!


Anyway, I was very surprised to not like Citizen Cope that much. He has several songs I really like, and I think he's a talented artist! However, I'd never heard his music in a big block before, with him just standing up there singing with his guitar. His songs all sound too much alike, have the same downer tone to them, and explore the same themes. He's much better in smaller doses.

The Paper Raincoat had an awesome final song that involved an intricate hand-clapping game played by the band members as musical accompaniment. Their other songs? Too cutesy; too much xylophone.

Theo Katzman was talented, but I can hardly remember his songs. A little pretentious, dare I say. Not for me.

Anais Mitchell is ADORABLE and quite probably a folk music genius. She's written a folk opera called "Hadestown" based around the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, and I am DESPERATE to see it! She performed this song from it last night:



The Spring Standards had some awesome country/folk-inspired songs full of amazing three-part harmonies. They also ended up with an a capella song that blew the crowd away.

Vienna Teng is, quite frankly, a star. She is FANTASTIC! Her voice is gorgeous, and her piano-playing: flawless! She's also quite charismatic. Just...just listen! Here's the song she opened with last night:



The Avett Brothers kicked major ass and provided a hell of a lot more sound and energy than one expects from a folk festival! I may have a new crush, though I couldn't tell you on which brother...our seats weren't that close, and my eyesight isn't that good. :P

Before the show, we had dinner at one of my favorite Ann Arbor restaurants: The Earthen Jar. It's all vegetarian Indian food, served cafeteria-style: you make your plate, weigh it, and pay by the pound. The restaurant is in an old house, and only has about 6 tables. The walls are covered in posters of Bob Marley and they play reggae music. It is AWESOME! And other than replacing some of the more rickety chairs and moving the buffet to the other wall, it looks just like it did when I lived in Ann Arbor.

After the show, we went out for martinis at The Black Pearl. I had a lychee martini that was delicious!

Tonight, going out for a belated birthday celebration with the girls. As usual, half of the invited guests can't make it/cancelled: it's to be expected when your birthday is in late January and you live in the Frozen North. :P Still, I'm looking forward to a night out: we're going to a new restaurant called Frita Batidos, and it looks delicious!

ETA: Ok, I just made MAJOR edits to this entry. I don't know what the hell I was on when I was writing it. There were major typos everywhere: not to mention several WTF word misplacements that...just made no sense. For example: "late journey" instead of "late January". I don't even know what to call that. 'Typo' seems inadequate for that kind of fail.

Anywho, I had a fun time tonight! Frita Batidos was DELICIOUS: I had a spicy black bean sandwich, churros scented with orange and nutmeg and coated in cinnamon sugar, and a coconut cream batido: basically, a coconut milkshake. YUM!

Then we played pool and went dancing. Good times!

Date: 2011-01-29 11:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] evilhippo.livejournal.com
Hello there, Anaïs Mitchell... suddenly I find that I need Hadestown immediately. Why had I not heard of this? It's right up my alley. (And as such I have already obtained it. Yay, emusic!)

Allow me to add to that... you get a folk festival over there! No fair! I mean, we have little ones here, but not with anyone you'd recognize (as for Ctiizen Cope, though, when I saw him the person I was with asked me several times during the set who he was. I guess to be fair we were both being roasted alive by the sun, so there's a little leeway, but yeah... I had about the same problem. He's not a very thrilling performer.)

Date: 2011-01-30 03:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rachel2205.livejournal.com
Your dinner sounds sexy-delicious!!

Date: 2011-01-30 07:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] housemaid79.livejournal.com
Oh yay - I'm so glad you got the card!

And wow, your dinner sounds delicious. Yum! I'm so glad you had such a lovely evening. :)
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