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Folk
The Muse at the Gray Goose
It's about listening, about focus. The Muse at the
Gray Goose in Londonderry-a 150-seat living room-like hall with acoustics
so sweet the music will stay with you for days after-is about words,
about being content with a single spotlight, closing your eyes and
listening.
Folk is about hearing and seeing the story, the performers' and your
own.
Like the story of owner Meredith Allen-gray haired, her head moving
with every note, a hippie whose time has come, again. Meredith came
to NH in 1970, the Muse came in 1990; first a 60-seat closet, then
a concert hall where fans sit around round tables and socialize between
songs. It's a hall draped in old flags, a barn but not a barn where
the musicians wander out into the audience and tell you their story.
Like the story of guitar player Chris MacVittie. Chris opens the evening
with his guitar and voice, and with his father, Fred. It's an odd
combination, but one that works-their voices sound alike, the music
is mostly about love found, or lost. They are about to go to Europe.
Chris' girlfriend just left for California, he says-opposite ends
of the earth. He sings about it. The audience is quiet, intensely
so.
Like the woman at the table, sitting slightly away from her companions.
She's in black and gray, she doesn't move. She turns once, and slants
her eyes at whisperers behind her, then returns to her silence. Like
the two young girls, maybe 10 or 11, both in red, both in pigtails,
both in love with Chris MacVittie. When they move, they skip, in unison,
like they have practiced moving together. They skip to the dessert
table-sugar and caffeine are free at the Muse-under the sound booth.
Like the soundman, tall and skinny and pale; a chain tattoo around
one bicep. A single, tiny light reflects on the soundboard, casts
dense shadows on his thick glasses. Later, between sets, he sits outside
by the door, smoking, the cold air covering him in gray fog. Like
Jennifer Nobel, the singer for Grey Eye Glances, the Philadelphia
group everyone here came to see. In sequins and at least six months
pregnant, Nobel's breathy voice holds everyone's attention, forces
them to listen to her stories.
-Dan J. Szczesny
Dan J. Szczesny
can be reached at hippo@hippopress.com.
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