Why Should the Fire Die?

Nothing like starting off the week with some crappy news. I opened my email this morning to this message from one of my favorite bands, Nickel Creek:

Dearest Listener,

After seven years of extensive touring in support of three records (seventeen years as a band), we've decided to take a break of indefinite length at the end of 2007 to preserve the environment we've sought so hard to create and to pursue other interests. It has been a pleasure to write, record, and perform for you through the years and we'd like to heartily thank you for your invaluable contribution to our musical lives.

Yours,

Nickel Creek
(Sean, Sara, and Chris)

Doesn't sound too promising, does it? I've been lucky enough to see these guys four times over the past six years, (most recently at Bonnaroo) and every time, they put on a fantastic show. In between Nickel Creek albums, both Chris Thile and Sean Watkins have released numerous solo albums and performed with a variety of different artists, but the band definitely had something special when they played together. I'll keep listening to whatever their new projects are (like Chris' new album), and I hope they continue to be successful, but here's hoping their break doesn't last too long. Hopefully I'll get a chance to see them again before the end of '07, and I also hope that after that time, Sara Watkins will find have plenty of opportunities to continue singing. Meanwhile, I'm keeping their music alive by listening to my entire collection of Nickel Creek, side projects, and solo albums (which, according to my iTunes, should be good for about seven hours).

UPDATE: After a bit of Googling, I found an article on Billboard.com that sheds more light on the situation, and Rexblog goes even further into the "hiatus". Billboard has more info on upcoming projects, including the happy news (for me, anyway) that Sara has a solo album due out in the next six months.

Road Trip

So, after spending my last few days of work feeling like a graduating senior, I continued that analogy and did what every kid headed on to the next phase of their life does... ignored all my responsibilities and took off on a road trip. In this case, AB and I headed down to meet my brothers and their girlfriends at the Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, TN. We arrived Thursday night around 8pm and left Sunday around 7pm, and in that amount of time saw at least part of the performances by all of these artists: Andrew Bird, Ben Folds, Nickel Creek, Oysterhead, Death Cab for Cutie, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (who brought out Stevie Nicks for a couple of songs), My Morning Jacket, Rusted Root, Beck, Radiohead, Abigail Washburn (with Béla Fleck), Soulive, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Son Volt, Matisyahu, and Béla Fleck again. I also managed to see the US-Italy travesty... I mean, game, on Saturday in a tent with 850 people. Highlights for me were Andrew Bird, Nickel Creek, and seeing Béla perform 3 times on Sunday. The lowlight was getting some kind of flu/food poisoning thing that took me out of commission for most of Saturday, including having to leave Radiohead's show about halfway through because I felt so crappy. To understate enormously, that sucked. Otherwise, the weather was hot, dry, and dusty, but I had a really good time. That many bands in three days is pretty amazing. I figured my tolerance for live music would run short pretty quickly, but it never did. Lots of good energy there, both in the crowd and coming from the bands. Also, lots and lots of hippies. Check out some photos from throughout the festival.

Now back to real life. Three days of packing, then I'm off to Denver.

SOUNDS
Song of the Traveling Daughter, Abigail Washburn
The Sparrow Quartet EP, Abigail Washburn
Get Behind Me Satan, The White Stripes
Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane

Three-part Harmony

Tonight: band #2 in my current stretch of 5 concerts in 15 days: Nickel Creek. (Actually, it's 17 days, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it.) Anyway, this was my third time seeing Nickel Creek, and the first time they've been a true headliner. Openers were the Ditty Bops, who I'd seen once before on an ill-fated night when I came to hate their fans. Tonight was much better. They've really got this weird 1920's lesbian/flapper girl thing going for them, and it seems to work. Although, both times, I've come away with the impression that Tim Burton needs to use them on a soundtrack.

Then on to Nickel Creek. I've seen them in support of each of their three albums, and it's been an interesting process for me to watch them grow up with their music. Their current album, Why Should the Fire Die?, is the most mature collection of songs they've produced, and their show is beginning to show some of that maturity. NC has always been a literate band, (in the past, I've heard them cover everything from Beck to Bob Dylan to Bach) and tonight was no exception, as we heard The Band's "Cripple Creek", Kings of Leon's "Milk", and a crowd-pleasing cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic". Yes, you read that right. It's amazing what someone who can actually sing can do with that song.

And with that, I come to my point. The initial appeal of the group was that they were these three young virtuoso instrumentalists making bluegrass music beyond their years. But as they got older, (ha! they're in their 20's) their music began to change, mixing rock, pop and jazz into their repertoire. As they've experimented, they've figured out that their voices are instruments as well, and used them as such, building layers of vocals into the songs that carry just as much weight as their fiddle, mandolin, and guitar. Tonight's set leaned pretty heavily on songs from the new album, and it really allowed them to showcase how they've begun to rethink singing together. And that, to me, shows their maturation as performers more than anything else. Very, very satisfying.

Oh yeah, and Sara Watkins is still wicked hot.

If you're interested in hearing some Nickel Creek as they currently sound, check out this group of songs from Reg's Coffee House, including a cover of Radiohead's "Nice Dream" from The Bends. Again with the cover songs. (Click on the Nickel Creek photo on the right side of the site to bring up the music player.)