My Christmas gift to Mer this year was a bit early. I took her on a date on Thursday the 10th. We went to Outback to eat, and then drove over to Kent to go to the Kent Stage (an old renovated movie theater) to see one of Mer’s favorite bands, Over the Rhine.
Mer has been following Over the Rhine since around 1991. The band members went to Malone College in Canton, and all had Mer’s father, Dale, for an English professor. So, Mer found out about them through her dad. The original four-member band is now down to two original members – a husband/wife team that is still creating really good music. The duo brought along three other musicians with them to flesh out the sound, and they were tremendous. One musician in particular was jaw-dropping. He played the pedal steel guitar, mandolin, dobro, guitar, and a mandolin-guitar hybrid that I had never seen before, and he played them all effortlessly. I spent much of the concert watching him.
The concert was excellent. It opened with Lucy Wainwright, the daughter of Loudon Wrainwright III (a well-known folk singer). She was by herself and played guitar. She was a very funny person with many stories (including a date in London where her date ended up in the hospital (not her fault)), and her music was very solid. She did a nice job of winning the audience over, and she played for about 45 minutes.
Over the Rhine came on after a 20-minute intermission, and they played for over two hours. Being December, they did several numbers from their two excellent Christmas albums, but they also did many songs from their other albums as well. They did not go back as far as their first two albums, but otherwise I think they did at least a song from all the others. The lead singer, Karin, can still sing, and her husband plays keyboards really well. They seem to enjoy each other on stage, and had a good time interacting with the band.
If you are interested in hearing what Over the Rhine sounds like, you can check them out for free at archive.org – start here – http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3AOvertheRhine&sort=-publicdate and see what you think.
Just to round out the Christmas gift, I did buy Mer Over the Rhine’s first-ever songbook so she would have something to take home and play on the piano. Turns out the arrangements are a tad tricky, but she is a game soul and did a nice (if slow) job at her first few attempts at them. Merry Christmas, love!