I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: September 26, 2023] Free Range

When the lineup for the All Things Goes Festival was announced, the first band to play on Saturday was Free Range.  My daughter and i are going to the Festival and we both agreed that we had not heard of Free Range.

Imagine my surprise to find out that Free Range was opening for Ratboys at Johnny Brenda’s.

Free Range is Chicago musician Sofia Jensen (who is originally from Scandinavia).  Free Range put out an album (Practice) in February.  I listened to maybe a song on it and was kind of meh about it.

But live, they were excellent.

The songs had a pretty consistent feel to them–they would start slow and would often build to a loud middle section (usually instrumental) and then kind of fade back into the quieter verses.   It wasn’t a quiet-loud-quiet verse chorus thing because the loud parts were more of like a jamming session in the middle of these (otherwise rather short) songs.

Sofia’s voice sounded familiar–maybe a kind of Phoebe Bridgers vibe–a kind of strong whispery style, and her songs had a strong Pinegrove feel to me (turns out that Nick Levin from Pinegrove plays pedal steel on on two of the tracks).  I guess the songs are indie rock with a whiff of country about them.

They played mostly songs from the album.  About half way through, the lead guitarist (who was really good) switched to pedal steel (at which he was very good as well).  These songs didn’t change dramatically with the pedal steel, but they did offer even more of a country vibe.  The good thing is that Jensen’s voice doesn’t have any of the twang of country singers, so I really enjoyed the chill vibe these songs projected.

I also really enjoyed her drummer Jack Henry who kept things interesting, even during the slow parts, with some fun fills and tom tom work.

Although, interestingly, the chill vibe was often smashed by the loud jamming sections of some of the songs, especially the final one “Want to Know” which rocked out more than the others.

Jensen introduced the rest of her band but I can’t recall their names.

I’m always intrigued when a band plays almost all of an album.  Free Range played nine songs from Practice and one new song.  The only one they didn’t play was the final song on the album “Traveling Show.”

I would happily see them again at All Things Go, but we are leaving in the morning for the show and don’t expect to get there until after their set is over.