Mountain Stage

Sunday night, my husband and I (along with four great friends) headed to Charleston for dinner and Mountain Stage. First and foremost, I must say that if you are a West Virginia resident and haven’t yet visited Mountain Stage, get thee there quickly. You won’t regret it.

If you’re unfamiliar, Mountain Stage is a live concert series hosted/produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting that was started in 1983. Each show is taped live, and generally features 4-5 artists/bands of various genres. The live show lasts 2 1/2 hours, and is then edited down to 1 1/2 hours and distributed to other public radio stations across the country, airing approximately a month post-recording. The shows are most commonly taped at the WV Culture Center (at the Capitol Complex) but they frequently take it on the road to Morgantown, Wheeling, and other locations. Not to mention tickets are incredibly inexpensive for the quality of the program. So go. Please. You’ll thank me.

Now that I can step down off my soapbox, I thought I’d tell you a little about last night’s performance. First up was Amy Speace, a lovely artist who had great lyrics and memorable melodies, with a sort of classic singer-songwriter feel. I liked her, and her slouchy boots.

Second up was The Proclaimers of Just To Be/500 Miles fame. You may remember that song from Jr. High (if you’re my age – adjust accordingly), and I was surprised to find they looked exactly as I remembered them from the video. I’m pretty sure I owned the cassingle. You know, cassette singles that were the precursor of iTunes. Anyway, they’re Scottish and I found them highly entertaining. I found myself wondering how they came up with the idea to do that with a song on more than one occasion.

Next up was the modern classical group Cordis. I loved it. First of all, the founder played a cimbalom, which I somehow made it to 30 years old without even knowing it existed. I want one. You know, I could learn to play it in all my free time. I was also fascinated watching the percussionist and his 15 instruments in the back. It took me back to high school concert band. (Some of my favorite high school memories revolve around band class. I admit it.) For the last song, he incorporated a children’s piano. You know, the kind with like eight keys that sounds awful when a child actually plays it but was totally cool in this setting.

After that was Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears. They were a retro soul group reminiscent of James Brown. Their sound was a bit loud for my taste (but really, that’s just me), but the were incredibly talented. Even if you’re not into that type of music, they were more than entertaining to watch. The lead (Joe) was dressed in a pair of jeans, a white t-shirt, navy hoodie and a red and white trucker hat. The Honeybears all wore black pants, white shirts, skinny black ties and vintage-inspired eyeglasses. They even had moves to some parts of the song. There was one sax and one trumpet in the group, and I commented to Evan that they really hit the jackpot. There’s much a much more cool band that a couple of horn players could dream of being part of.

Finally, Colin Hay performed. A couple months ago I mentioned to my husband the Indigo Girls were coming to Mountain Stage and oh-by-the-way-Colin-Hay will be there just two days earlier. Well so much for the Indigo Girls – Evan about jumped out of his seat when I mentioned Mr. Hay, so he was the reason we went to this show. His voice was incredible, his guitar playing impressive. Not to mention he told some great stories in between songs so that even if you weren’t loving his music (I was) you would have enjoyed the show.

The whole evening was just fantastic. Good friends, good dinner (Tidewater), and a great show. I really hope you’ll consider going soon. And if you can’t make it to a live show, you can always listen online or check listings for your live broadcast schedule.