[ATTENDED: December 31, 2019] Chris Forsyth + Garcia Peoples
I was blown away the first time I heard Chris Forsyth’s album Dreaming in the Non-Dream. When I saw his Tiny Desk Concert I was convinced that he was someone I wanted to see live.
Forsyth is based in Philly which means I should be able to see him a lot. And, in fact, he does seem to play in the area quite a lot. But always when I’m unavailable! So, if it meant travelling to NYC to see him so be it.
Garcia Peoples’ set ended at around 1:15 and, since they were backing up Forsyth, there was no take down/set up to deal with. At around 1:30, Forsyth came up on stage and made sure his stuff was in order. Then he called back Garcia Peoples to the stage and off they went.
Like the GP set, Forsyth only played three songs. And like the GP set, it lasted 45 minutes of awesomeness.
They started with Forsyth’s new song “Tomorrow Might as Well Be Today.” It’s got a great opening riff and the song just takes off from there. The song is only 4 minutes on the record (his latest record Mystic Mountain), but they jammed it out for a few minutes more. Forsyth’s soloing was just fantastic.
Garcia Peoples were an essential backing band for Forsyth, which was really apparent on the title song “Mystic Mountain.” Most of Forsyth’s songs are instrumental but occasionally he sings lead vocals. “Mystic Mountain” is one of them. This tends to mean the song is a bit simpler–although in this case it also meant that both Tom Malach and Danny Arakaki got to play some extra guitar parts while Forsyth was playing the main melodies.
The other fun thing about this set up was that Forsyth was also accompanied by drummer Ryan Jewell. I wasn’t familiar with Jewell, but he was really amazing (even more so with Ryley Walker later in the night). But this mean that there were two drummers–Jewell and Cesar Arakaki. It’s always fun to see two (or more) drummer because they are always in sync with the tempo, but it’s fun to see which one is going to add the flair.
“Mystic Mountain” is about 9 minutes on the record, but I think they jammed it out a little longer than that. Nevertheless when Forsyth said that they had one more song I was a little bummed.
Until it turned out to be “Dreaming in the Non-Dream,” still my favorite of his songs. It’s 15 minutes on record and has multiple parts and stellar riffs all the way throughout. And it totally rocks. Everyone took a solo during the song, but I was pleased to be right in front of Forsyth to be able to watch him work.
The middle of the song has the great part with some loud chords that sound like an ending but are really just a lead into some soloing (in this case from Malach and Forsyth).
Near the end of the song, Forsyth had pretty much strangled every sound out of his guitar, so he unplugged it and used the cord as a pick. I’m not really sure it did anything except make some staticky sounds but it was sure fun to watch.
This was a great set and I really enjoyed finally getting to see him live. I’m really looking forward to seeing him (maybe with the Solar Motel Band) again.
SETLIST
- Tomorrow Might as Well Be Today
- Mystic Mountain
- Dreaming in the Non-Dream
from
1,2 Mystic Mountain (2017)
3 Dreaming in the Non-Dream (2019)
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