Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Rosebuds bring special guests to Duke Gardens

We thought last week's 300-plus crowd for Thad Cockrell's show at Duke Gardens last week was big, but last night, The Rosebuds topped that and then some. Duke Performances sold nearly 600 upwards of 800 tickets for the show and the lawn was dense with music fans, young and old.

Ivan and Kelly came on stage as a duo to play the Birds Make Good Neighbors song "Wildcat" before being joined by drummer Rob Lackey who played the rest of the set. The band moved on through their set, hitting some set standards but pulling out a few rare gems including "Happily Ever After" from the compilation Old Enough To Know Better: 15 Years of Merge Records and "Water Breathes Heavy" from the now out-of-print Bain Music Project.

During the set, The Rosebuds were joined bassist Wes Phillips for a large portion of the set. The upright bass added a new color to The Rosebuds tunes which sounded great.

He wasn't the only special guests though. Late in the set Trekky Records guru Will Hackney joined the band on mandolin on "I Better Run" and returned later as a part of a horn quartet of featuring members of the Trekky Orchestra. The horns really added some nice color to the tunes "Border Guards" and "El Camino."

In a nutshell, The Rosebuds' set at Duke Gardens is truly unique to the Triangle. On tour, the band would not be able to invite numerous local guests up for just a few songs, and that made the show special. The 500-plus people all sitting on the law at the beautiful Duke Gardens is pretty awesome too. It's literally like day and night from the usual club shows.

[all photos by Kevin Norris]

Set list:
Wildcat
Blue Bird
Happily Ever After
Kicks in the Schoolyard
Cemetery Lawn
Water Breathes Heavy
Warm Where You Lay
Shake Our Tree
Silja Line
I Better Run
Hold Hands and Fight
Life Like
El Camino
Border Guards
Bow To the Middle
Get Up Get Out
Nice Fox








3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The tuba player in your pictures is Mark Daumen (from SNMNMNM on Unschooled Recods, and various other projects).

Anonymous said...

Wonderful photos, as always! It was a lovely night all around.

Ken Rumble said...

Thanks as always for the review, y'all -- fun times, fun times....