The Lone Bellow w/ Odessa at Turf Club – St Paul, MN (03 Mar 2015)

Odessa

Nashville by-way-of Roseville, CA musician/instrumentalist Odessa (aka Odessa Rose Jorgensen) opened with a short and demure set of sparse sounding tunes from her current EP, and self-titled full-length (on Chop Shop/Republic Records), due out April 28^th.  The statuesque blonde has played violin with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and fronted bluegrass-folk band, Bearfoot, but has since gone out on her own.



Somewhat charmingly shy on stage alongside her guitarist and bassist and with plaintive songs like the single and album opener, ‘’I Will Be There’ (which has been heard in a Suburu commercial) make Odessa musically hypnotic in a Cowboy Junkies sort of way.  She did have to try with her soft vocals to be heard early on, over the rustle of the back bar in the venue, but most near the stage were transfixed and attentive.

The Lone Bellow

Instead of storming out with a foot stomping high tempo song, Brooklyn’s The Lone Bellow began their set in a similarly gentle way to Odessa’s, with new album deep cut, ‘Telluride’, as their initial song.  The NY alt-country trio (Zach Williams – guitar/lead vocals; Kanene Pipkin – mandolin/vocals; Brian Elmquist – guitar/vocals; along with Jason Pipkin on banjo/keys/mandolin, and Brian Griffin on drums) has achieved much success and a growing following since we saw them a few times on their first album’s tour and it seemed like the long sold-out venue was much too small for them.  However, in terms of a live experience, a remnant cowboy bar from the late 1940’s seemed to be an ideal venue for the band and its music.



A bevy of songs from the new album began the night, with the title track next, its uplifting verses “bright like a light that you kept from your smile” as the lyric goes, with all members harmonizing perfectly to end the song.  “This one’s been a long time comin’ Saint Paul!” Williams declared a few songs in, appreciative to be playing the other side of the Mississippi River Twin Cities metro for the first time.



Pipkin took over the lead vocals mid-set, for a bare and yearning version of Paul Simon’s ‘Slip Slidin’ Away’, with the trio huddled around a single mic.  The group then invited opener Odessa back on stage for an intimate version of her own song, ‘Hummed Low’, with everyone singing on stage in close quarters.



Williams then mentioned the night in Minneapolis after their first show in town- singing along with the cover band and riding a mechanical bull, at an area country bar.   Drummer Griffin tapped along on the snare as backdrop music, and soon Elmquist and Williams led the crowd in an impromptu sing-a-long of Boys II Men’s ‘End of the Road’, with Williams also mentioning the new waltz-like song ‘Diners’ (which namechecks St. Paul) being born that night as well. The might-be-the-official-song-of-the-Minnesota-winter ‘Cold As It Is’ closed the main set, with Williams beginning the song with the opening lines of The Eagles’ ‘Heartache Tonight’ of which both songs are very similar in tempo.

Setlist

The two-song encore started with the harmonizing, quiet of ‘Two Sides of Lonely’ and ended with the undeniably catchy ‘Green Eyes and a Heart of Gold’, both from their first album. To keep the cover versions going, the latter was segued in seamlessly from a verse and chorus of The Proclaimers’ ‘500 Miles’.



While the new songs are still being embraced (or conditioned like a new baseball glove by smartly road testing them in smaller venues), the first album’s songs are powerful live, and The Lone Bellow is clearly having a fun time playing live, as its audience continues to grow.  Almost as fun as… make that, more fun than karaoke night at a western dive bar.



Anyone that missed The Lone Bellow, is encouraged to catch them in the area this summer, as part of the Eaux Claires Festival, happening in nearby Wisconsin July 17-18.