I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: February 20, 2019] Lily & Madeleine

Lily & Madeleine are sisters from Indianapolis.  I saw Lily & Madeleine on a Tiny Desk Concert a few years ago.  The show was from 2014 when the pair of them were still teenagers (Lily was 16, Madeleine 18).  Their harmonies were just terrific and I made a note to see them when I got a chance.

I saw that they were going to be playing World Cafe Live upstairs in Philly.  I’ve never seen anyone upstairs there before (it’s a smaller space), so I was happy to grab a ticket.  It turns out that they are also doing a Free at Noon before the show.  Then I saw that they were going to be playing at The Saint in Asbury Park on a Wednesday night.  The Philly show was a Friday night (this Friday, 2/22, tickets are still available). It’s quite a hassle for me to drive to that part of Philly on a Friday night so I decided to go to the Asbury show instead.

Then it snowed.  A lot.  We were even given off early from work.   But by 6PM, the snow turned to rain and driving was totally fine.  There was no traffic on the Parkway and I made it to Asbury Park in ample time.  (See the post on The Well Wish for what I did between my arrival and the bands’ show).

Because of the terrible weather the were only about 8 people in the whole place.  In fact, Lily & Madeleine were in the floor dancing during the opening act–I thought it was them but wasn’t sure until they went on stage.

I feel like they must have been so annoyed that they drove out from Brooklyn for 8 of us, but they were so nice and friendly.  And they sounded amazing.  They said they were grateful that a few of us came out in the weather.  They’re not a huge act by any means, but they have been on CBS This morning and are going to be on again on Saturday so is not like no one has heard of them.  So this turned out to be an amazing very personal show.

They have anew album coming out Friday and our show was a kind of warm up, I guess.  But it sounded pretty great to me.

I don’t really know any of their songs, I just liked their sound, so I had no requests for what to hear.  The fact that he played the entire new album and couple of old songs was fine by me.

Although I have to say that I love the way they sang on one of their earlier songs a bit more than their newer stuff–on this early song, “In the Middle,” (and some others from that first record, they sang everything in close harmony together, whereas now they tend to have lead vocal lines and occasional (gorgeous) harmony parts.  But that’s just a natural progression and these new songs are really terrific.

When they started, with “Self Care,” Lily (in the darker top) was on the keyboard and Madeleine (in the white sweater) was on the synth machine (which mostly played bass notes).  After a song they switched places.  They alternated between who sang lead (typically Lily has the deeper voice).

They were accompanied by Shannon Hayden on electric cello and electric guitar.  The songs themselves are really nice, but I was blown away by the additions that the cello and her guitar were putting into the songs.  These aren’t on the record, and I feel like the live experience was even better than the record.  There was one song, I think Blue Blades, where there was an echo on the cello and Shannon was making these beautiful soaring sounds and then proceeded to slide her hand up and down the neck with notes and scratching that just made this wall of sound which was just amazing.

In fact the sound at The Saint was really fantastic.  Their voices sounded great.  The drums were sharp and clean and the guitar and cello were just perfect.

I loved the moody sound of “Canterbury Girls” and the way it juxtaposed with the moody earlier song “Blue Blades.”

Their new song “Analog Love” sounded unlike anything they’d played before and I really liked it.

I wanted to get some more of Shannon’s guitar or cello work, but I did get this short clip from “Can’t Help the Way I Feel.”  I also liked that her name was written in white in the corner of her guitar (see right).

I loved the drum beat of “Hotel Pool,” it’s an unexpected drum pattern (with lots of toms) and it really worked with this otherwise slower song. Their drummer was really great.  They mentioned her name really quickly and then after the set she disappeared, so I don’t remember what her name was.

The last five songs were from the new album and showed of the diversity of their songwriting, especially the final song “Go,” in which everyone left but Lily and Madeleine and they sang that final song with just the two of them.  It was lovely.

When the show was over, they both came out to sell CDs (I hope everyone there bought one).  I chatted briefly–they were super friendly.  And as you can see from the picture below they talked to this other guy for quite a while.

I also talked with Shannon and she told us about how that very cello was stolen from them when they were packing up for their show at CBS studios.  She drove to NJ to rent a new one and then they found her cello in a dumpster near where it was stolen–the thief must have stashed it and had not yet gotten back to it.  So she was happy to have that baby back.

It’s strangely wonderful to be one of the only people at a show.  It feels very personal (even if I didn’t interact with them at all).  And, honestly I always complain about awful concertgoers around me, so this is sort of ideal.  But you do feel bad for a band playing to only a dozen people.  I can only assume that their other shows will be better attended.  They are well worth it,

SETLIST

1. Self Care ©
2. Just Do It ©
3. Canterbury Girls ©
4. Blue Blades ƒ
5. Analog Love ©
6. In the Middle ϖ
7. Can’t Help the Way I Feel ©
8. Hotel Pool ⊗
9. Hourglass ⊗
10. Circles ©
11. Bruises ©
12. Pachinko Song ©
13. Supernatural Sadness ©
14. Go ©

© = Canterbury Girls (2019)
⊗= Keep It Together (2016)
ƒ = Fumes (2014)
ϖ – The Weight of the Globe (2013)