The Kennedys After Thanksgiving

We had family over for Thanksgiving ... which was a lot of fun ... and then took everybody out to Shirley on Friday the 23rd to see The Kennedys at the Bull Run.  They played in the small room upstairs (the Ballroom) while J. Geils (the person not the band) played in the big room downstairs.  The Ballroom was packed with probably twice as many people as I've seen in it ever.

Maura seemed not in top voice, probably a bit of a cold, but Pete brought 4 guitars, his electric sitar, and his ukelele and the two of them put on an excellent show.  They opened with River of Fallen Stars (which is like the Dead opening with Morning Dew ... you know they're serious), followed that with Half a Million Miles, did Breathe and 9th Street Billy and their great covers of Wall of Death, Chimes of Freedom, and of course Dave Carter's When I Go and Gypsy Rose.  They also did a few tracks from their new record, Closer Than You Know (I'll Come Over, Winter, and Happy Again), which is very much a Maura record to my ear and doesn't quite have that jangle-pop sound I love in their music, even though it's very good.

They took a set break somewhere in there and Dave and I had a nice conversation with them, Dave gushing about the sitar Pete played on Matty Groves, the closing song of the first set ... Pete gave him details about the adjustable frets on it).  I told them how much I had enjoyed seeing them at the Wilbur with Nanci Griffith in May and mentioned particularly Nanci joining them for Daydream Believer.  They were psyched to remember that and said that that had been the best night of that tour in their minds.

Maura was a bit more warmed up for the start of the second set, but you could tell her voice was not right and she was getting tired.  We were getting tired ourselves and had a long road back so left in the middle of the second set.  A great time was had by all of us, most of all by my Dad who was just delighted at the richness of sound they produced, the poetry in their lyrics, the ambiance of the Ballroom, and the fact that he was able to share something we love doing, going out to see world-class musicians in hole-in-the-wall places.  We were delighted he liked it!  Now if we can just get him to a Furthur concert...