Tift Merritt at Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis (08 April 2017)

The Suitcase Junket

One-man-band The Suitcase Junket (aka Matt Lorenz) opened up the show. Lorenz had all the musical instrumentals in his “band” at an arm’s length… complete with leg percussions and throat-singing (or rather “vocal tricks” as he called it).



Lorenz is no stranger to being on stage and managing a variety of instruments, as he was one of the member of trio Rusty Belle, with his sister Kate.



After finding a guitar from a dorm dumpster, Lorenz fixed it up and started working on songs that would soon would be known as his The Suitcase Junket project. With a forthcoming Pile Driver album coming out 21 April 2017 on Signature Sounds Recordings, Lorenz decided to spotlight ‘Busted Gut’, a song inspired by the great, late Chuck Berry.



He ended his 45-min set with ‘Let Go’, a song that he considered good advice and an anti-“Hold On” type of love songs. Not bad, considering his guitar sometime tells him, “Remember that I’m a piece of garbage?”

Tift Merritt on piano

It was Tift Merritt’s last night of the tour, before her month long break until her May dates. Although she sounded excited to finally be back in Minneapolis, you can also tell that she is definitely looking forward to resting. Merritt was also recovering from losing her voice (she was forced to cancel her Milwaukee’s appearance the night before), and was, as she puts it, “on steroids”. She later joked that during the live performance (and recording) of Buckingham Solo (29 Nov 2008), that she was on “French steroids” and it was much, much better than American steroids.



Joining Merritt on stage was Eric Heywood on steel guitar and Matt Lorenz pulling double-duty as percussion and various instruments.



To conserve her voice, Merritt decided to play a few songs on the Cedar’s house upright piano… which is a boon for traveling bands who wanted to use keys in their live performances, but don’t want to bring their own piano (unless you’re Ben Folds, who actually travels with a grand piano).
As with most Cedar Cultural Center seated shows, the crowd was respectful to the music and the quieter piano songs sounded just perfect.

Tift Merritt

What made the current tour so special for Tift Merritt fans, is that this is her first major appearance since 2013 when Traveling Companion (the updated/expanded version of 2012’s Traveling Alone) was released. In the long hiatus, Merritt dedicated some personal time off and give birth to a baby girl named Jean in 2016.



With 2017, she was really excited to announce Stitch of the World on Yep Roc Records. The sixth studio album was a reflection on all the major changes in her life.



As you can see from the setlist, 99% of Stitch songs were played, including the title track and set intro song ‘Wait For Me’ and set closer ‘Proclamation Bones’.



For fans waiting four years for new songs, this is a great tour for them to hear all these new, fresh songs… but for those looking at older, deeper cuts, they were rewarded with ‘Good Hearted Man’ from Tambourine and two (‘Small Talk Relations’ and title track) from Traveling Alone.



It’s been a long time, but fans were still delighted to have Tift Merritt back, based on the terrific turnout for the Cedar Cultural Center show.