Cats Are Grey

The Highline Ballroom presented an excellent night of music on Thursday. The headliner was Jolie Holland who plays blues-ish, country inspired rock songs. Tom Waits is a huge fan of her music which makes sense as they both have both a timelessness and an undefinability to their sound. Ms. Holland sings and plays guitar but also played synthesizer, violin and some sort of weird violin/fiddle-ish thing that looked kind of homemade. She has a new record out, “The Living and The Dead,” which I’ve been listening to quite a bit.

The opening act was Herman Dune, a duo of French brothers (or maybe they’re just pretending to be brothers, who knows these days?), who play similarly country/folk influenced rock or rock influenced country/folk. As you can see in the drawing above, one brother has a long beard. He sings and plays guitar. The other brother drums. For most songs they were joined by several backup musicians including a horn section, two lady singers, another drummer, a bass player and a guy holding an adorable baby. Jolie Holland joined the core Herman Dune duo for a version of “Blue Moon” on which the musical saw was played! Hooray for the musical saw! Herman Dune has a new CD out called “Next Year In Zion.“

It should also be noted that the show was a sit down affair which is a nice change of pace for those of us who are small and can’t see over the giant heads of others. Sarah and I both lament that The Highline has removed their risotto dishes from the menu but we do love the spring rolls.

Mexico City – Jolie Holland
I Wish That I Could See You Soon – Herman Dune