Posts by Maeri Ferguson

Solid Sound wrapped up with a day of clear skies and bright sun. A last-minute opening performance by Daughter of Swords (in place of Le Ren) started things off easy and low-key, and later sets by Sun Ra Arkestra and Chicago stalwarts Eleventh Dream Day kept the energy up in the final moments of a […]

Most festivals leave you racing between sets, compromising time with your favorite—or your new favorite—acts as you try not to miss anything. But at Solid Sound, no artists overlap, giving you the full opportunity to absorb each performance if you choose. Saturday at MASS MoCA was a day for doing just that, as highlights like […]

No one could have imagined on that stormy final day of Solid Sound Festival in 2019 that it would be three years until the next one. But here we are, finally making the much-anticipated return to MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, the museum that hosts Jeff Tweedy and Wilco every other year for three […]

On the sixth consecutive day of Newport Folk Festival’s “Folk On” and the third of the second segment, the schedule got a needed pick-me-up from the bluesy rock musings of Early James, starting off the early afternoon on a high note. Songs like “Stockholm Syndrome” and “Dishes in the Dark” off James’ 2020 release Singing […]

The best moments of day two—or day five, depending on how you look at it—of the second part of Newport Folk Festival’s “Folk On” event came from new voices. While there was clearly an instinct to book plenty of familiar faces to the festival who’ve played, in some cases, a handful of a times in […]

We all knew the cancelation of Newport Folk Festival was inevitable in 2020, but 2021 remained somewhat of a mystery until not long before its scheduled dates. Whether or not it would happen was a big question mark in the aftermath of (and really, the ongoing) COVID-19 pandemic, and if it did happen, what would […]

When you’ve built a strong fan base from singing songs about pain and sadness, it is tough to imagine where you go from there once you’ve found a little inner peace. John Moreland has, for the past several years, succeeded in shredding our hearts to absolute bits, making us ugly-cry to his soulful songs about […]

When the Hiss Golden Messenger show at Webster Hall on November 14th seemed to end abruptly, the crowd suspected something was amiss. One of the most generous bands to grace a stage anywhere, Hiss is known to love an encore, to read the room just right. We later discovered they’d been unceremoniously rushed to conclude […]

When her second full-length album Crushing came out earlier this year, we watched Julia Jacklin continue to evolve as an artist from 2016’s Don’t Let the Kids Win. Her voice as a songwriter, and confidence as a performer seemed to grow stronger; her perspective more self-assured. Even as the songs on Crushing find her still […]

There’s something a little weird about a co-headlining show. No matter what the acts are, whichever plays first just doesn’t attract the same crowd. One act has to function as an opener, regardless of following or fanbase. The strangeness of this took shape on November 7th at the Bowery Ballroom, where Dylan LeBlanc played an hour-long set […]