No-Strings Intimacy
In personal relationships, intimacy comes at a price. But in music it can come quite affordably, especially on rainy weeknights, and it's often just as good.
Such was the case watching Jeremy Enigk and Dave Deporis on Tuesday night at Great Scott in Allston. It was a perfect crowd: big enough to be significant, yet small enough to be completely silent at the right moments. Dave Deporis brought some pensive, rainy day emotion with his opening set. He set the tone nicely for the rest of the night, and the rest of the week. Deporis brought shades of Blind Melon's album Nico, which I say with the highest praise.
For the headliner, we were treated to an acoustic set of national coffeehouse phenom Jeremy Enigk. When Enigk took the stage, the room fell silent for thirty seconds while he tuned. I LOVED it! It was surreal to look out the window and see the hustle and bustle of lower Allston passing by me in total silence. It was like a scene from a movie. As the music started, my mind continued to wander and evoke images of driving first through the city, and then through a desolate road far from home, that I had never been down before. When this starts to happen to me at a show, I consider it a particularly good show. The fourth song, "April Storm," was my favorite of the night, as it engrossed the crowd and really got me warmed up to Enigk's style for good.
The gathered crowd enjoyed every moment, and I felt a distant sense of camaraderie with all of them, even though I didn't talk to anyone all night, save for our photographer Beth. The intimacy transferred from artist to music to listener seemed to spread from listener to listener in the form of positive glances and mutual admiration.
I think I need to do small shows more often!
