Back in NYC (for good this time – we finally closed our old office in Massachusetts and opened a new one in Manhattan!) and I’ve seen four concerts in the last five nights. I’m starting to wonder about the sustainability of a 1:1 ratio of blog posts to concerts in a city with this many good shows, but we’ll see how it goes.
Two of the four concerts I saw were Sean Rowe performing on two different stages at Rockwood Music Hall. I was coming in to the shows a bit blind, not having heard his new record, Madman, yet (I pre-ordered it, but didn’t manage to get my hands on it for a few weeks because of reasons I won’t bore you with). I’d been hearing lots of good buzz about it from some of my more music-savvy friends, so I had high expectations.
I’ve seen Rowe perform three times before, always solo, but this time since it was his big record release party, he had a full band with him (please forgive me for not remembering all of their names, I was exhausted and forgot to write anything down). He had an adorably excited-to-be-playing band member named Rex on accordion, percussion, his mom’s roasting pan and a gyill (I had to look up the spelling of that one: it’s a wooden xylophone-type instrument from Africa involving gourds, leather and spiderwebs – really!); a female vocalist; and someone playing bass and flute (but mostly bass). Rowe himself sang and played guitar. The band added a lot of fun and variety to his show, but the main attractions for me are his songs and his voice, so don’t hesitate to catch one of his his solo shows!
I’m not sure if one of the nights was really better than the other, but I was feeling a lot better on Friday so I enjoyed that show a lot more. I also had a nice spot to take some videos of some of the quieter songs he played (the louder/more energetic ones distorted my camera mics too much).
This was (IIRC) the last song he played on Friday night, “Signs” from his second album, “The Salesman and the Shark.” It was a great closer and was a nice way of getting the band back on stage for the finale after he did a few songs solo.