Show Review

No matter where life takes you, your old friends can be the hardest things to leave behind. New jobs, new towns and new adventures can come and go, while the memories of your old friends can sometimes remain as the only concrete thoughts you hold dear.

Imagine going to a music school and studying with musicians who later would go on to form bands like The Slip and the Benevento/Russo Duo. What a crazy time it must have been for Marc Friedman, Andrew Barr and Marco Benevento when they attended classes together before they went on to form their revered bands. Their bond still holds strong, as was evidenced at their show to close out their brief mini tour billed as Friedman, Barr and Benevento at Higher Ground.

Opening the show was Slip guitarist, Brad Barr, who performed a rare solo set. His heartfelt and intoxicatingly beautiful set included a few covers and a bunch of Slip tunes usually heard in the full band format. Barr would sometimes set up boomerang loops and then play acoustic guitar over them and sometimes stick to the pureness found in a single guitar and vocal format. The big highlight came in the second song with a rendition of a song he wrote with Nathan Moore called "Before You Was Born," which lyrically strikes a powerful set of chords that make you think about and contemplate what life and love really mean. The set was full of songs that were hinged together with back and forth feelings of what true love feels like and what it can do to you. One of Barr's newer songs, "Vesuvius Fountains," fittingly had the refrain, “loosen the strings around your heart.” About halfway through the set Barr showed his playful side in the tune "Talkin' Alleghany Street Blues," presenting mimicking lines about knocking on doors, while knocking on his guitar, amongst lines about laughing, with him singing the line and laughing at the same time. Barr capped his set with Benevento and his brother Andrew Barr joining him for The Slip’s "Suffocation Keep" of which the emotion just poured out. His set surely did set the tone for the night.

After a brief break, Friedman, Barr and Benevento slyly took the stage. Their set slowly built from the bottom up with a very late era Coltrane sound prevailing. The music sounded like it could have been an out-take from the OM or Interstellar Space sessions. All three musicians appeared in top form and didn’t ever show signs of not knowing where the music would travel next. It went through portions of heavy ambience as well as moments of locked in tightness. The ever smirking Benevento would throw in some weird arcade game sounds from time to time that lead the band into what it might sound like if Pac Man and Frogger were jamming with Beck.

The sounds and jams produced could not come from musicians who just played together often, they could only come from musicians who really hold an affinity for one another. The glances around the stage were that of friends who loved to impress one another, while never trying to outdo their stage partners. When a musical section would climax all three were smiling bright.

The only truly composed song played came at the end of the adventurous set and could immediately be foretold by the trademark drum-beat. It was Led Zeppelin’s "Immigrant Song." The three piece was joined by Brad Barr who looked ready to blow things out with Marco and his fellow Slip bandmates. The version was pretty true to form with Benevento’s keyboard work mimicking Robert Plant’s viking howl.

This show was a pleasure to witness. It made me think fondly about old friends and how those long ago connections make all of us who we are. If we could only call those old friends up to come join us out on the road to relive those days like these guys do, we would all be the better for it.

Joe Adler is a musician based out of Burlington, Vermont. He performs regularly around the Burlington area with his band The Joe Adler Acoustic Project