I have experienced very little live music during the last fifteen months, and I miss it. I was looking forward to attending a Dead Man String Band performance on Fountain Square last month but it fell victim to some serious wind and rain. It was rescheduled for June 4 and this time the weather cooperated in wondrous fashion. It was not, however, the same show I would have seen on May 7 if the weather had not misbehaved so badly back then. The “band” underwent a major transformation that included a tripling in size. You’ll see.
A difference I don’t think had anything to do with the transformation of the headliner, was a change in openers and an increase from one to two. I apologize to Loop Man Dan for catching just a smidgen of his set as I walked through the square on the way to dinner. I returned in time to hear about half of Nick Baker’s performance. Both were new to me and everything I heard sounded good.
Wikipedia says that a string band is “an old-time music or jazz ensemble made up mainly or solely of string instruments”. The original Dead Man String Band was an ensemble of one. Rob McAllister played some pretty fancy bass and lead parts on an electric guitar while wearing a mask and playing bass and snare drums with his feet.
Rob is still at the heart of the band but, with the addition of John Castetter on bass and Eric Osborne on fiddle, it more closely fits the standard definition of a string band.
Rob calls this the acoustic version of the band and has written a ton of new music for it. That even includes some banjo tunes so that the instrumentation matches that of a traditional string band a little closer. Tonight there was no snare or hi-hat; just a tambourine for that left foot. His face is still partially hidden but now it’s by a beard instead of a mask.
As I circled the crowd on the way out, two different groups spotted my camera and volunteered as subjects. One was seated at a table at the back of the widely spaced crowd and the other was listening from the side of the stage. That’s something that has not happened in a long time and it felt pretty good. Actually, the whole evening felt good — and a little strange. The pandemic isn’t over and COVID has not been conquered but there are promising signs. A little string band music is one for sure.