I've occasionally enjoyed listening to bluegrass music. I still have fond memories of attending the public concert of a dulcimer convention in Little Rock, Arkansas, some 16 years ago, and most of the music fell in that category.
So I decided to take up the Freight's offer of early tickets to a concert by what they assured us was a popular bluegrass band, though I'd never heard of it. And so last night I found myself among the enthusiastic crowd pouring in for a two-hour set by the Del McCoury Band.
This was a different sort of bluegrass. What I'd heard in Little Rock was typically a single performer at a time balancing a mountain dulcimer across her knees. This was Big Band Bluegrass: Two guitars, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, and bass, played by six men (and they were all men) all trying to outdo each other in fancy solo instrumental displays, which they'd trade off on during songs. This kind of show-offery is one of the things I dislike about jazz, and I don't much like it in classical concertos either.
The singing, though live and on mikes, all sounded like it came from a scratchy old 78, and the words were usually unintelligible.
Nevertheless I sat through the whole set, it wasn't unpleasant, and towards the end I had the treat of hearing them do a song I actually knew: Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning." I don't think I'd heard anyone but RT do that before, and hearing it translated into bluegrass was - interesting. Things devolved chaotically when the leader - whom I guessed was Del McCoury himself, though he never introduced himself - asked for requests. The torrent of song titles bellowed out from the audience seemed to bewilder him, and they just played what they wanted.
Uniquely for a concert I've attended on the evening of the game, nobody mentioned the Super Bowl. What a relief.
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