For the tenth annual Woodsist Festival, label founder and Woods vocalist/guitarist/founder Jeremy Earl brought the proceedings from the West Coast — where they enjoyed several successful years at Big Surprise — to upstate New York. Here in the tiny town of Accord, on the grounds of Arrowood Farm-Brewery, Woodsist showed what the purpose of a music festival ought to be.
It was: a cloudless day, not too warm; a gathering place where families with small kids, curious locals, and heads from near and far could converge to enjoy music, in an environment that welcomed all; sonically, a confluence of like-minded artists who knew each other well, who’ve cross-pollinated each other’s work in many cases and will do so again, and who shared many stages on this day. It was, in many ways, the perfect festival.
Woods has been one of the signature New York bands of this era since its inception, particularly so during this festival’s lifetime. They’re part of a rarified group whose shows are a virtual guarantee of something unique, that always leave you thinking about their music differently by the time you leave. It felt right, then, that this festival brought together the “2009 lineup,” including Kevin Morby and G Lucas Crane. Likewise, the setlist reflected the band’s best-known music from that time period, from “Rain On” and “Blood Dries Darker” to the classic one-two sequence of “jam songs,” “Bend Beyond” followed by “I Was Gone” (albeit, a short version this time).
Whatever its original intention, this ended up being more than a highlight set for this era of Woods. Several of these players were part of David Berman’s backing band for his final project, Purple Mountains, for which Jeremy Earl and Jarvis Taveniere were also producers. Berman’s suicide left a hole in music that can never be filled. For the many of us who had hoped to see him play music again (as was the plan with the Purple Mountains lineup), it was a generous and rare gift for the Woods crew to play two of his songs to close out the set. The first, “All My Happiness Is Gone” (with Little Wings‘ Kyle Field on vocals), was one of the darkest and most sobering songs on an LP full of them. Hearing it live for the first time in this context didn’t exactly change the song’s tone, but maybe it showed, in a small way, what could have been.
The set closed with Morby on vocals for “Random Rules,” from Silver Jews’ 1998 masterpiece American Water. It is, in my opinion, a perfect Berman song, a damaged plea to a former lover, whose series of brilliant couplets still make you crack a smile still on the thousandth listen, even with the melancholy at their core. For all the ache at its core, though, the song ends on a note of hope, however temporary: “Honey, we’ve got two lives to live tonight.” Despite the circumstances, it was a joy to hear Berman’s words sung from a stage again.
I recorded this set with a soundboard feed provided by Evan, and Schoeps MK5 microphones in the FOH tent. It’s an excellent capture of the day. I hope you enjoy it — and please support this festival in the coming years!
Thanks to Woods for allowing us to record and share the set. Other recordings from the festival will be made available for those artists who permit.
Download the complete show from its page on the Live Music Archive
Woods
2019-09-28
Woodist Festival
Arrowood Farm-Brewery
Accord, NY USA
Recorded and produced by acidjack
Soundboard (engineer: Evan) + Schoeps MK5c (at SBD, DFC, PAS)>KC5>CMC6>>Sound Devices MixPre6>24/48 polyWAV>Adobe Audition CC>Izotope Ozone 5>Audacity 2.3.0>FLACS ( level 8 )
Tracks
01 Out of the Eye
02 Blood Dries Darker
03 Find Them Empty
04 Pushing Onlys
05 Rain On
06 To Clean
07 Bend Beyond
08 I Was Gone
09 Suffering Season>
10 Military Madness
11 [banter/break]
12 All My Happiness Is Gone [Purple Mountains]*
13 Random Rules [Silver Jews]$
Joined by Kevin Morby (bass) and G Lucas Crane (vox, other) all set
* w/ Kyle Field on vocals
$ w/ Kevin Morby on vocals
Recent Comments