Brion + Thile = (Awe * Ecstasy)
I was in LA over the weekend (having a great time, fueled by friends and the lovely people at Maker’s Mark). A new friend took the group to the Largo. Great place, v. LA/anti-LA. Dinner club atmosphere, but all about the unusual music acts. They serve you, insist on silence to the level of threat, darken the room, and while you eat like a blind man, you listen.
And what listening was to be had that night. We saw “The Jon and Chris Show”, a side-act put on by Jon Brion (producer of Amy Mann, Fiona Apple, and some great film music) and Chris Thile (mandolin player for Nickel Creek).
I hope you’ve had the sort of musical experience Largo attendees had that night: the heady mix of awe and ecstasy that comes from witnessing spontaneous virtuosity, with performers leveling perfectly between plain having fun, and plain showing off.
Highlights included the section of 25/16 Bulgarian folk dance music by Chris, and the piece Jon played solo on drums, upright piano, analog synth, and guitar (via lotsa tricky low tech looping). The Bach mandolin segment was pretty amazing too, as were the Radiohead and Beck covers.
There’s only one show in my life that has compared for “that feeling”: Richard Thompson solo at The Moonshadow in Atlanta.
20 years between such experiences is just too long. The lapse is also amazingly brief, given the brilliance of the moments when they come.
