Gill was unexpectedly engaging, with unusual but tonal harmonies, hilarious lyrics, and a flexibility that took him not just from vocals to accordion, but from vocals to guitar to keyboards to accordion. A pretty obvious and important oversight. His audience participation was a little contrived, but as a performer fairly new to the scene, this was forgivable, and more than made up for by his affability and humor.

And how does one ignore the length of the primary set? Jennings must have performed at least 25 tunes, an oddity in the world of 5-6 songs plus monologue, plus 5-6 more to end the performance. In that world, which seems to be the norm, a bonified concert is something to rejoice over. There is little to say about the song choices, since nearly every song is liquid poetry. Certainly I was unhappy about some omissions, but when your top-quality selections go as deep as your total songbook, something’s gonna give.

I was also a little disappointed at the lack of criticism of the incompetent soundmen, who felt it necessary to impose a Drum and Bass type balance on the acoustics. When my date asked me if I was the type that could ignore such offenses and just enjoy the concert, I had no choice (except dishonesty) but to let her know that I could not; it was just too great an offense to the intent of the music. In the end, it turned out I was able to ignore it, but I do love to imagine how a decent balance could have enhanced the experience.

All in all, great concert Zach and Mason. I was thrilled to share your music with my lady-friend (she’s not my special lady!), and I was disappointed to find my local indie record store was lacking any Zack Gill albums the day after the concert. Perhaps the local chain music store? Ack!

I’ll tell you one thing. I headed over to YouTube to check out The Devil Went Down to Bulgaria, and it’s fairly entertaining:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Q56UR_t6s

The stand-up bassist is Steve Adams and the acoustic guitarist is Dan Lebowitz, both from ALO. While they are not exactly touring, they are far from a hiatus after playing the Las Tortugas Festival over Halloween weekend. Plus, they are on the boat for JamCruise 2009 and they’ll be back on tour after that.

“The Devil Went Down to Bulgaria” tune is a bastardized cover of The Devil Went Down to Georgia, originally made famous by The Charlie Daniels Band. Pretty basic stuff, new or younger music writers and/or critics might miss it but I don’t know why this wasn’t edited in by the Glide peeps. This just feels “phoned in.”

“Yeah, well, I know, that’s just, like, MY opinion, man!”