Lake Street Dive
Shervin Lainez
The music business always rushes to the new. There is an urgency to be in front of the next thing. Often that’s an artist which appears with one song or one album and then vanishes. For those of us who have been around a minute there is an appreciation for the acts who have become seasoned. That is the case with Lake Street Dive, a band who has been on the road for more than 20 years. The magic of experience is that time works to your benefit. The longer you play together, odds are the better your performance.
Good Together Album Cover
Lake Street Dive
Good Together, Lake Street Dive’s new album recently released and the band is touring in support of the album. Because Lake Street Dive has been around for two decades, fans who get to the shows will not only get the new songs, they’ll also already have a pretty good idea of which of the bands’ well known songs will play. The set lists are established and much thought went into how to take fans on the journey through their catalogue.
I spoke with founding members Rachael Price and Mike Calabrese about the band, the new album and life on the road. It’s a long trip from their beginnings studying jazz at the New England Conservatory of music to playing on iconic stages like Red Rocks in Colorado or Madison Square Garden in New York.
One of the things I like about Lake Street Dive is the quality of their musicianship and the purity of Rachael Price’s voice. It’s musicianship rather than showmanship which is now the hallmark of this band and the core attractive value of the music they release.
Lake Street Dive
Shervin Lainez
Their progression as a band began when Lake Street Dive formed in college. They were then playing mostly original songs without conventional instrumentation. As Rachael describes it, they had no guitars and Mike played a “version of a drum kit”. They didn’t have background vocals and their sound was “really weird and genre-less.”
Over time the band collectively realized they liked music like that of Paul Simon, the Beatles and soul. So, they pivoted to writing songs more in those styles when they went out to play bars in Boston. Those three set a night bar gigs are what informed Lake Street Dive that it’s fun to put on a show where the audience can sing along. Ultimately, they grew their audiences from 50 people in a bar to thousands on an arena tour. Rachael’s take is that their discography in order is similar to a sculptor slowly chiseling away the excess until the art beneath revealed itself.
Lake Street Dive’s current tour is playing in spaces of from 1,200 seats to Madison Square Garden in NY which is 15,000+ Their average show is 3,000 – 5,000 seats. That’s really a sweet spot where there are enough people in the space to create energy, but not so many that the band is an abstract idea to those seated in the back.
Of course, for those who really want to see an intimate show, here is a video live from the Lizard Lounge.
There’s nothing more engaging than being in a shared space with a happy crowd enraptured by top flight live musical performance. Lake Street Dive is on the road. They are excellent. Go see them. Their tour information is below.
LakestreetdiveLake Street Dive
Source link : https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericfuller/2024/07/22/lake-street-dive-are-good-together-and-on-tour-across-north-america/
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Publish date : 2024-07-22 16:11:20
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