After leaving Humble Pie in 1971 for a solo career, Peter Frampton found only marginal success on his own until the release of his 1976 seminal double-live album Frampton Comes
‘On a hot Summer or cold, rainy Winter night, she’ll go Crazy On You”
Grace Potter & the Nocturnals @ Irving Plaza, March 10 & 11
For two nights last week, a tight rock band that seemed destined to be part of the “jam band” scene, took the stage at new York City’s Irving Plaza. But this group clearly has much greater ambitions. On both nights, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals cranked out two hours of “arena-style” rock in the packed club. GP&tN served up a taste of soul, blues and rock that was polished to a sheen and ready to be heard by a larger audience.
[All photos by Marc Millman]
With roots reaching back to both Vermont – Waitsfield is Ms. Potter’s hometown, and St. Lawrence University – the college where the band formed, the Nocturnals are a five-piece band that seems much like a family of close siblings. Potter sings, plays the Hammond organ, acoustic & electric guitar. Both Benny Yurco, who plays electric guitar, and bassist Catherine Popper joined the band in 2009 as part of the group’s only lineup change since forming in 2002. Scott Tournet plays lead & slide guitar and Matt Burr pounds the skins. And “pound” he does. It is fitting that the man who first approached Ms. Potter about forming the band is the true standout in the ensemble. Although all the musicians play at a high level and are exciting to watch, the energy coming from Mr. Burr with his constant smile make his enthusiasm infectious.
Over the two nights, the band played only five songs twice. This meant that Ms. Potter was able to show off the breadth of her material. On night one, the band performed a single acoustic song with only Grace, Scott and Benny on guitars. On night two, instead of one acoustic number, they did two songs with her on acoustic and the whole band electric. Then, the lineup switched to just the three acoustic guitars as Potter strode to the mic and said, “this is our last night, so I figure we’ll pull out a cover.” After a false start on Freebird due to the usual idiotic request, she stopped and said, “you’d have to put a lot more dollar bills in my hand for me to play that.” And then the three of them took the more obscure route by performing a cover of Gillian Welch’s Elvis Presley Blues.
READ ON for more of Marc’s Musings on Grace Potter and the Nocturnals…
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