Was just sitting there at work minding my own business on a Wednesday when WUMB sent an email offering Wailin' Jennys tickets to the first few who answered. So I answered (as did Sarah, a little later), and I got a pair of ducats to see them Thursday night (8/23) at Sanders Theatre.
Well, we'd never seen them before, though I've been enjoying their music for years. And we'd only been to two things at Sanders Theatre. Don't get me wrong, it's an incredibly beautiful place in a building (Memorial Hall) built as a monument to the Civil War in the middle of frickin' Harvard College, the oldest college in the World (ok, the Western Hemisphere). The whole place is built out of wood as intricately as a Chinese puzzle box and the sound in the theatre is like melted butter over just the best toast. But the seats in it can be as uncomfortable as in Fenway Park and you're crowded and jostled and sometimes it can be hard to enjoy.
But whatever ... we were psyched and it was a beautiful Thursday night and we got a great parking space on Mass Ave. and walked through campus to get there ... apparently freshman orientation had started already. And the amazing thing was that we jostled through the crowd and got our tickets and they said "Orchestra Row C." We'd stumbled on free tickets to the concert and they were third row center, up in the quasi-pews where the seats were comfortable ... and the people next to us never showed up so we had plenty of room. I never knew a Brahmin could be this happy!
Comfortably ensconced and the three Jennys (with two male accompanists) came on ... left to right Adam Dobres on guitars and mandolin, Heather Masse on bass, Nicky Mehta on percussion and guitar, Ruth Moody on guitar, banjo, and bodhrán, and Richard Moody (Ruth's brother) on fiddle and mandolin. And this was a wonderful two (short) sets of music! The incredible setting put a little pressure on the band however. Moody referred early on (sarcastically) to what a dump they were playing in, and Mehta said bitterly that they'd just started a tour and this kind of ruined it because how could it get any better?
As I say, the Jenny's have been around for a while and know their craft, and they sure made that hall resound, with assists from the crowd when they called on us. They do some traditional songs, some modern country songs, and some originals, and all of them featured meticulous arrangements which fit their voices like a calf-skin glove. For instance, they did Zevon's Keep Me In Your Heart with not a trace of the bombast Zevon didn't need any longer when he wrote it, Simon's Love Me Like a Rock like your mother singing you a lullaby (they're all recent mothers), Petty's Wildflowers, Emmylou's Boulder To Birmingham, and on and on. Masse did a song she had written as homage to jazz standards, which could have stood up with any of them. And Moody closed with their anthem, One Voice, with the Sanders Theatre ringing with us all echoing as one voice.
Just a wonderful, out of nowhere, night of music! And a pleasant walk back to the car through a humid Harvard night, and then a slow drive back past the Mystic Lakes.
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