Laura Gibson sang to friendly faces at home in Portland Friday night. Cozy, be-balconied Mississippi Studios played a lovely host - I spied from on high as Mike Midlo, Breathe Owl Breathe, and Gibson played in the spotlight (for the second time that night). A real treat of an evening: little known opener turn out to be gems, songs I hope will be played sound even better live.
Growing up in Northeast Portland, we had neighborhood pancake breakfasts in The Madeline School parking lot each summer. The grocer from Alameda Foods was the griddle master. We'd sit and eat at picnic tables pushed together in long rows. Breakfast outside! Pancake Breakfast the band is from Portland, OR and they bill themselves as Americana, Rock, Roots. Mike Midlo and two other members of Pancake Breakfast kick off the evening's festivities. Their music is foot-stomping and honest, gentle but then in a minute barreling...and happy! I love watching fun being had making music. If the curtain fell and the lights came up when they ended, I would have left content.
Breathe Owl Breathe hails from Michigan. I first heard about them from a fellow melophobe, who quite luckily caught their cape-clad performance way out at The Woods Stage, Pickatlon 2009. Traveling light on this tour, many of the instruments they hauled on stage were borrowed...cello, banjo, candy apple red guitar. A tiny plastic pineapple marraka also made an appearance. Quirky and funny in their banter (I can't remember a show where I giggled so much), Breathe Owl Breath's sound is stitched together with echos, breaths, scratches, and yelps which grow in the spaces between words and impart an organic depth.
Laura Gibson is a class act. Her sound is expansive and personal, breathy and rich, strong. This night, she was ringed by a clutter of musician friends - flute, clarinet, base, percussion - and more adoring fans flanking the stage. La Grande was the present of the night, unwrapped song by song. Those songs best received were full with sound, while softer, more acoustic pieces let some chatter filter through and rocked others in the audience to sleep. The next morning I ran in the woods and around a lake near my home. I listened to La Grande two times through as my body woke up, the movement in the songs moving me forward, the sadness in some turning my mind inward and away from the grade of the hill, the force of wind.
