OtR played Thursday night with Dar Williams at the Meijer Gardens in G.R. While Dar was billed as the headliner, she actually opened the show without her band. Dar played a solid though unspectacular show playing her mostly pleasing tunes with just her acoustic guitar.
Over the Rhine came as a four piece band this time. They opened the show being very jazzy, then eventually morphing into a rock band. They played a ton of songs from their upcoming album The Trumpet Child including the title track, I Don't Want to Waste Your Time and Nothing is Innocent. They also covered a lot of territory gong through their catalog performing several tunes from Drunkard's Prayer and Ohio.
OtR put on an amazing show and showed how versatile they are. Karin handled lead vocals, acoustic guitar and took over keyboards on a couple of songs. Linford added some background vocals, piano and occasionally guitar and bass. Their bass player played standup and electric bass as well as some electric guitar. The drummer had a long solo (I have not heard OtR allow solos since the days of Ric Hordiniski almost ten years ago) that drew quite an ovation. Actually, the new drummer (I don't know his name) is quite a revelation. His layered and driving percussion really drove a lot of the band's songs and added some meat to some lighter numbers.
I could go on and on. It is a rare band who can combine jazz, folk and rock and spin it into such a poetic venture. It was a trademark passionate OtR show and I can't wait for their new album to come out in a couple of weeks. Also, they will back in December so River City folk will have another chance to see them this year.
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