First indoor show since the before-times! The venue continued
to insist on mask-wearing, plus proof of either vaccination or a recent PCR
test, so it didn’t seem especially unsafe, despite local case counts that have
once again been creeping upward the past couple of weeks. No food or beverages
were available, although you could bring in bottled water.
It was an excellent show, well worth the parking hassles
(see below), as Bonoff combined high-quality material (mostly self-written)
with an expressive voice and an engaging stage presence. She moved back and
forth between acoustic rhythm guitar and piano, accompanied on (mostly)
electric guitar by the indispensable Nina Gerber. Almost without exception, their
renditions sounded even better than the more-fleshed-out studio takes.
Highlights included “Someone To Lay
Down Beside Me,” a personal favorite of mine dating back to when Linda Ronstadt
included it on Hasten Down The Wind; the upbeat “Trouble Again”; “Please
Be The One,” a moody ballad that brought to mind Chris Isaak; and her lovely
cover of Jackson Browne’s “Something Fine”, accompanied only by Gerber’s quiet
acoustic guitar work. Both encores were also great.
I arrived a good half-hour before the listed 8:00 start
time, only to spend 15-20 minutes fruitlessly circling (along with others) through
the multi-level attached parking garage looking for an empty space. The garage across
the street also had a long line waiting to get in, so I was close to giving up
on the whole thing. As I was aimlessly driving out of the main retail area,
however, I saw another big lighted “P”, with no line and the illuminated
digital promise of many spaces available. I parked, hustled back toward the club,
managing somehow not to get lost – it was now well after sunset – and picked up
my ticket and got checked in, a few minutes after 8:00 but about 5 minutes
before the show actually started. I spotted a pair of empty seats in the back
row of the “premium” section, and quickly grabbed the one on the aisle. It appeared
to be a near-capacity crowd, with only scattered empty seats.
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