Manchester Orchestra playing socially distanced acoustic show in CT (tix on BV presale)
UPDATE: SECOND SHOW ADDED AND ON SALE.
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Original post…
Manchester Orchestra and frontman Andy Hull have stayed pretty busy during the pandemic. Andy released two albums of demos featuring unreleased songs from 2006-2010, he’s done some reissues for both Manchester and his Right Away, Great Captain! solo project, he released a Manchester Orchestra live album on the band’s Patreon, he guested on the recently-released lead single off Touche Amore’s upcoming album, he’s been working with Foxing on their TBA fourth album, and he’s been working on his own new music too.
On top of all that, Manchester Orchestra will be coming to the Northeast for a socially distanced acoustic show on October 17 in Morris, Connecticut at South Farms. Tickets are on BrooklynVegan presale now. Password = ManchesterBV.
The show is part of South Farms’ outdoor “Twilight Concerts on the Farm” series, put on by Manic Presents, where Dinosaur Jr. played earlier this month. Attendees are seated in socially distanced “Guest Grids,” keeping each group a safe distance from each other; you can see their full safety guidelines on their FAQ.
Stay tuned for more from Manchester Orchestra, and while you wait, watch their recently released live-in-studio acoustic video with Brother Bird:
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Must-Hear Folk Albums of 2020 So Far
Bill Callahan – Gold Record
Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – Reunions
Arlo Mckinley – Die Midwestern
Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways
Neil Young – Homegrown
In a 1975 Rolling Stone interview, Neil called his long-shelved-and-now-finally-released album Homegrown "the darker side to Harvest." With more hindsight, he called it "the missing link between Harvest, Comes a Time, Old Ways and Harvest Moon" in Jimmy McDonough's 2002 Neil Young biography Shakey. Those albums are all on Neil's folkier, more acoustic side, and Homegrown is indeed cut from that cloth. As soon as you hear the opening of "Separate Ways," you're transported right back to the warmth of the Harvest era. It's of the same proto-slowcore variety of that album's opener "Out On the Weekend," but even more haunting and melancholic. Just 30 seconds in, and Homegrown already lives up to the description Neil gave Cameron Crowe of it 45 years ago.
That same mood carries over into second track "Try," which -- like "Separate Ways" -- features The Band's Levon Helm on drums, and Levon really managed to capture the bare-bones, slow-paced drumming style that these types of quietly revolutionary Neil Young songs always demanded. "Try" is also one of two songs on Homegrown with backing vocals by Emmylou Harris (the other being "Star of Bethlehem"), and her soaring voice makes for a truly lovely contrast with Neil's more somber delivery. And as melancholic as those songs are, they've got nothing on the melancholy of the entirely-solo cuts "Mexico" (voice and piano) and "Kansas" (voice, acoustic guitar, and harmonica), or on "White Line," which features Neil, his acoustic, and his harmonica joined only by some lead guitar by The Band's Robbie Robertson. It's on those breathtaking songs where you can really hear why Neil -- coming right off the release of On The Beach -- might have felt like he was digging himself into a hole of dour, depressive music. But all these years later -- now that Neil has cemented his legacy over and over again and proven to be an artist who can evolve and adapt with the times without losing his own uniqueness -- those songs feel like buried treasure, especially for fans who gravitate towards his most hushed material. Full review here.