Black Prairie

Black Prairie at Eddie's Attic, 9-17-2013

Black Prairie will be returning to Eddie's Attic on September 22, 2014.

OK, Puppets

Atlanta's Blair Crimmins & The Hookers.  Filmed at The Star Bar.  With puppets.

Crimmins and the Hookers will attempt to heat up The Earl on this chilly night. You might wanna go. 

Speaking of puppets, there's also this:

Black Prairie Redux (with some dude singing)

So is this Colin Meloy backed by most of Black Prairie and featuring Laura Veirs, or is this Black Prairie with Meloy and Veirs, or is this The Decemberists with Veirs, or does this even matter? 

The Newport Folk Festival, July 2013.

Black Prairie - Eddie's Attic, Decatur, Georgia, 9/17/13

Black Prairie is a six-piece bluegrass and Americana-influenced band from Portland, Oregon, consisting of four-fifths of The Decemberists (basically, The Decemberists without frontman Colin Meloy), plus violinist and singer Annalisa Tornfelt of the bands Bearfoot and The Woolwines and guitarist Jon Neufeld of Dolorean and Jackstraw.  Last night, they played at Decatur, Georgia's Eddie's Attic.

It was a wonderful, almost magical, performance.  Between their bluegrass sound, their Balkan-influenced, gypsy instrumentals, and heartfelt songs, they were consistently innovative and surprising, even after accordionist Jenny Conlee revealed the set's blueprint early in the show by announcing that they would be playing fast songs followed by slow songs.

Highlights, and there were many, include Annalisa's performances on a Romanian Stroh violin, a violin that amplifies its sound through a metal horn rather than a wooden sound box as on a standard violin, and multi-instrumentalist Chris Funk's contributions on banjo and dobro.  Jenny Conlee was a warm and captivating performer, as always.   

Here's a relatively recent performance that captures their sound pretty well:

And since Annalisa said the video shot by the Skidmore Fountain with passing trains was her favorite, here that is as well:

Like many bands, they included an ironic cover in their set, performing Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son as their encore closer, with Annalisa belting out the sustained high notes at the end in show-stopping fashion. 

It's hard for me to accept, but despite all the time I spent in Portland back in '07 and '08, and despite attending three consecutive MFNWs in Portland between 2011 and 2013 and three Bumbershoots in Seattle the same years, I still haven't seen The Decemberists perform live.  Seeing four-fifths of the band last night was pretty damn close, and early this month during Day Two of MFNW, I saw Decemberist and Black Prairie drummer John Moen playing guitar and singing as the co-frontman of the new band Eyelids.  

Decemberist frontman Colin Meloy is on tour and will be playing Variety Playhouse in November - seeing him play then, in addition to my Black Prairie experience, may qualify as finally having seen The Decemberists, even if not altogether at once.