The Last Revel & the Joseph Huber Band- Anodyne Coffee Roasters, Feb 5, 2016

photo by Will Piper

If a good ol' fashioned hootenanny is your cure for the winter blues, then you should have been in attendance at Anodyne Coffee Roasters in Walker's Point for a great evening of foot stomping, hand clapping, sing-along Americana music. Opening the evening, was Joseph Huber and his band consisting of Jason Loveall on fiddle and Eaton Bennett on bass.  While perhaps best well-known as a founding member of the famous local "street grass" group, the .357 String Band, Huber has developed a very strong repertoire of tunes as a solo artist.  Huber's performance style is noteworthy of itself.  Sitting on an old suitcase, Huber thumped the the suitcase with a bass drum pedal on one foot and a tambourine on the other.  His set drew from his 2014 release The Hanging Road,  2010's Bury Me Where I Fall and a fair amount of newer songs from an upcoming record to be released later this year.  Coupled by Bennett's steady thumping on the upright bass and Loveall's quick witted fiddle jams, the capacity crowd at Anodyne came to life, dancing, and foot stomping to a level where you could feel the floor shake to old-timey numbers like "The Hanging Road," "Shovel on Your Shoulder," and "Tongues on Fire."  In many ways, the community feel of the performance and the eclectic crowd ranging from families with youngsters to college students to mid-lifers (like myself) to folks in their sixties and seventies made me think of what it might actually have been like to see music like this performed in a community barn a century ago.  After a robust hour plus set, Huber and his band mates were called back for a rare opening act encore, and did they ever deserve it!

photo by Will Piper

photo by Will Piper

After Huber's fantastic set, the Minneapolis trio, The Last Revel had a daunting task to match the energy and passion of Huber and his band mates, and they were able to do it with incomparable musicianship and soaring three-part harmonies.  The vocal prowess of The Last Revel and seamless instrument switching by the musicians from guitars to banjos to upright basses to fiddles made this act lively and engaging.  Tracks like "Unbound" off their self-titled 2015 release demonstrated both their homage to the traditional bluegrass genre and progression forward in their craft.  Other highlight tunes included the exquisite finger-picking banjo lines on "Iron and Ore," (also off of The Last Revel) and "Lead Me Home" off of their 2014 album, Uprooted.  After a riveting set, The Last Revel invited the Joseph Huber Band on stage for a goose-bump chilling rendition of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released."

photo by Charles Mayhew IV

As a fan of Americana music, I couldn't think of a better pairing of two aspiring acts performing to a graciously fun crowd at a pristine venue on a Friday night.  A great hootenanny was had by all who attended the show, and I will be looking to catch these acts once more when they next come through town.