Dorothy at Fine Line Music Cafe, Minneapolis (05 Jan 2018)
With an upcoming album, newfound sobriety, and a rapidly growing fan base, Los Angeles band Dorothy displayed their freedom on many levels, at a crowded Fine Line Music Café on a sub-zero night in downtown Minneapolis.
Dorothy Setlist
Tour Dates 01/12/2018 Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club
01/13/2018 Philadelphia, PA Theatre Of Living Arts 01/14/2018 Washington, DC 9:30 Club 01/16/2018 Raleigh, NC The Pour House Music Hall 01/17/2018 Charlotte, NC The Visulite Theatre 01/19/2018 Charleston, SC The Pour House 01/20/2018 Orlando, FL The Social 01/21/2018 Fort Lauderdale, FL Culture Room 01/23/2018 Tampa, FL The Orpheum 01/25/2018 Jacksonville, FL Jack Rabbits 01/26/2018 Atlanta, GA Terminal West 01/27/2018 Nashville, TN Mercy Lounge 02/14/2018 Santa Ana, CA Constellation Room 02/16/2018 Los Angeles, CA The Fonda Theatre 02/17/2018 San Diego, CA Music Box 02/18/2018 San Francisco, CA The Independent 02/22/2018 Seattle, WA The Crocodile 02/23/2018 Vancouver, BC Biltmore Cabaret 02/24/2018 Portland, OR Hawthorne Theatre 02/26/2018 Missoula, MT Top Hat Lounge 02/27/2018 Boise, ID The Olympic 02/28/2018 Salt Lake City, UT Metro Music Hall 03/02/2018 Denver, CO Bluebird Theater 03/03/2018 Boulder, CO Fox Theatre 03/05/2018 Kansas City, MO recordBar 03/06/2018 St. Louis, MO Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room 03/08/2018 Austin, TX The Parish 03/09/2018 Dallas, TX Cambridge Room 03/10/2018 Houston, TX White Oak Music Hall |
With an upcoming album, newfound sobriety, and a rapidly growing fan base, Los Angeles band Dorothy displayed their freedom on many levels, at a crowded Fine Line Music Café on a sub-zero night in downtown Minneapolis.
It seems only fitting that our coverage in the frigid New Year starts with a performance from local hard rock band Cold Kingdom, which features heavy guitar riffage and break-the-glass-ceiling vocals from singer Dani Engum.
The band has appeared on the bill with Shinedown, Papa Roach, and Saliva and their recent eponymous EP was even produced by Shinedown’s Eric Bass. Songs performed included the EP’s lead single, ‘The Break’ (which Engum quickly taught everyone the chorus to sing along with) and a few selections from their initial full-length, The Moon and the Fool. With the band already having appeared at previous installments of Northern Invasion, Halfway Jam, and RockFest, look for Cold Kingdom to continue with numerous area dates this spring and summer.
No clicking of heels three times was necessary as after a short break, Dorothy emerged for their seventy-minute headlining set, to play crowd favorites and preview a handful of brand new tracks from upcoming album, 28 Days in the Valley (recorded in, you-guessed-it, twenty-eight days, at Linda [Four Non Blondes] Perry’s California studio).
Their backdrop with their band name set amongst a grove of tropical palm trees couldn’t make us completely forget the howling cold outside, but the band worked like collective space heater to quickly warm up things inside the club.
Singer Dorothy Martin and band (Nick Maybury- Guitar; Jason Ganberg- Drums; Eli Wulfmeier- Guitar; and Eliot Lorango- Bass) play a hard-tinged blend of classic, blues, and acid rock that sounds built to endure as well as entertain, and wowed fans at last summer’s Moondance Jam, many of whom returned to see the band again.
Martin’s vocals naturally soar like a young Ann Wilson with the new material generally upbeat and more blues-tinged than last year’s Rockisdead (on Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Records?!) album. After the crunchy Zeppelin-esque ‘Who Do You Love’ Martin commented briefly about the weather, but quickly got on with things, determined to keep the heat already generated, inside the building.
After riffing a verse from Jim Croce’s ‘Bad Bad Leroy Brown’ (and revealing that to be the true first name of guitarist Wulfmeier), Martin lit up the crowd with ‘Pretty When You’re High’, a favorite of hers from the upcoming record revolving around a recently-legalized substance in her home state, replying “I don’t have any, sorry” when a crowd member up front asked.
“I went to high school with that one!” Martin exclaimed, pointing out a best friend from the balcony, “we turned out all right”. Martin also alluded to the filmed documentary meant to accompany the upcoming album, a no-holds-barred account of her recent sobriety, struggles with the new songs, and continued transformation as an artist, which should provide added insight to the new material.
‘Down to the Bottom’, the new album’s lead single, chugs with its Sunset Strip swagger, with Martin even adding a few Robert Plant “waaay down” vocal riffs between verses. The main set-closing song ‘Freedom’ obviously means much to Martin, naming this preview tour after the song, with Martin expounding her meaning of the word, pre-song, including the loss of our own personal liberties.
2016’s ‘Dark Nights’ began the two-song encore, a bluesy stomp with plenty of room for Martin’s vocals and Maybury’s guitar to stretch to fill every corner with an aching yet mesmerizing hum. “I found my backup singers” Martin said following, noticing many in the front singing along.
The night-closing ‘Whiskey Fever’, describing the drink as “my evil love”, is one Martin maybe sings with even more passion following her recent sobriety and the song steamed forward like a runaway train, “Get really drunk for me…so I can live vicariously through you!” Martin said, resolved to go on without, but clearly feeling the rush from a madly applauding crowd.
“You always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself” is what Glinda the Good Witch told Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz– armed with a cache of killer new songs, a turn to sobriety, and a fervently expanding fan base, prepare to be swept up in the freedom of the musical tornado that is Dorothy.
