I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: December 7, 2018] Carl Broemel

In 2016, I went to see the second Strand of Oaks Winter Classic at Boot and Saddle.  It was a wonderful night  I wasn’t even that big of a Strand of Oaks fan–I liked the latest album, but that’s all I knew.  The show was terrific and the whole night had a wonderful feeling of warmth and kindness.  Timothy Showalter is a super nice guy and very grateful for his success.

I didn’t think I needed to go again this year, but then I saw that one of the opening acts was Carl Broemel, guitarist for My Morning Jacket.  MMJ have been on my “must see again” list, but they haven’t played anywhere near us for a while.  So this seemed like the next best thing.

I was running late that night and assumed that Joe Pug was the first opener (from the way it was listed).  But when I got there I discovered that Carl was up first and had started already!  Gadzooks.

The place wasn’t that crowed yet, so I managed to get up pretty close to the guitar.  Much to my amusement there was a small crowd right in front of Carl who were HUGE MMJ fans.  They were pretty intense and did a (to me) comically slow full-bodied headbanging for many songs that were in no way headbangers.

But it’s always fun to be with dedicated fans–these dudes knew most of the songs he played by the first or second note.  I myself only knew a couple of his songs from the one album I have.  (He played no MMJ songs).  But I enjoyed them all.

He played mostly ballads but with some great soloing in the songs.  He looped the percussive guitar on a couple of tracks (and apologized when he did the intro but forgot to actually loop it).  With the guitar looping, he also played some solid solos.

He played a slow bluesy original “Falling Off the Face of the Earth.” and he really surprised me with a great solo rendition of Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song”.

It wasn’t as intimate and special as the Jason Anderson opening act last year, but it was cool to see Carl up close and watch him solo.  I also chatted with him a bit afterward, where he told me how he met Tim and about recording the new album.  He also had a really hard time swiping credit cards on his phone 🙂