A Concert at the Empire -- Tom Brousseau

On a whim I bought tickets to see Tom Brousseau in concert Saturday night. I remembered my friend Rebekah saying that he was a high school classmate of hers and I checked out his website some time ago. It seemed wrong to miss an opportunity to hear him perform live. I brought my mom... mainly, because I am just that cool. She was the perfect date, reminding me that we ought to drive separately because if he sucks she was leaving early! Nice. I refused to allow such madness and we drove together. The opening act was Adam Levy of the Honeydogs and he was okay... the first song we heard was a little iffy but he got better once we settled into his style. The theatre was the perfect location for the concert and I was pleased with the audience, the atmosphere and most of all the music.

My favorites were his "murder ballads." I loved the first song he performed and I don't know the name of it and now I can't find it anywhere on the internet... The other was "Darling Corey." He sang mostly his new songs from his current CD Grand Forks inspired by the flood of 97.

He is reviewed on NPR: "Brosseau is generating a lot of buzz by playing in some of Los Angeles' hottest live music venues. His biggest asset seems to be a voice that recalls the androgynous swoops and swoons of sensitive compatriots like Jeff Buckley and Devendra Banhart. He mixes homespun charm with tunes that alternately conjure classic acoustic blues and sepia-toned daydreams. ......... Sometimes his songs seem a little undercooked, as if the sad-eyed tunes are hiding their heads in oversized hoodies. The CD is the kind of no-frills, rainy-day folk record that could have been recorded in 1973 -- and if it had been, you get the feeling it might have become a cult classic."

I was fairly excited to discover that my cell phone actually took a photo that worked... well, it worked as well as a cell phone with no flash might work in a dark theatre. In this shot you can also see Hilary Hahn, a grammy award winning violinist who played with Tom during his second set of songs and she also performed a solo violin set in the middle. She was amazing and wonderful, though her classical pieces did seem a bit incongruent with Tom's songs. Later when they played together it was a lovely meld.