By: David de Young
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A shot of the Prairie Home Companion stage on Saturday. Andrea Zonn and Stuart Duncan fiddle stage right as Vasen plays stage left. Garrision Keillor waits center stage. Photo by Anna Lee (click for full size version)
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Prairie Home Companion writer and Artistic Director Garrison Keillor came out on the stage of the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul about seven minutes before Saturday's show went live on the air and did a pre-introduction, dryly remarking that we probably all should have stayed home. He's tried to tell people, he says, that the show is much better on the radio. Yet for some reason they keep on coming.
And coming in droves.
This was my first visit to the Fitzgerald Theater. I tried to imagine what the Mondale-Coleman debate would have looked like from my seat nearly in the rafters. Field-glasses would have come in handy Saturday; from where I was sitting, Guy's All Star Shoe Band shoe band appeared to feature Paul Wellstone on stand up bass and Har Mar Superstar on piano. (The bass was actually played by Gary Raynor and Richard Dworsky was the piano player. The full list of regular performers can be found here: http://www.prairiehome.org/cast)
Since these shows are all archived on MPR's website, you can just listen to it yourself. I'll try to limit my review to my take on the music and the experience of seeing the show live. (The archive is online at http://www.prairiehome.org/performances/20031025).
The façade of a house was setup on the Fitzgerald stage, with a front porch where a few special guests sat to watch the show. These guests had either a back or side view of the show, and I wonder about the photos I saw these folks taking as they're all likely to be pictures of Garrison Keillor's butt.
Tom Keith's sound effects were an early highlight. One advantage of the radio show over the live audience experience is that you can hear what's going on during the audience applause. In the live show you sometimes don't hear what's being said until the applause dies down, especially if you have a really loud clapper next to you as I did on Saturday.
The highlight of this show were musical guests Väsen from the north of Sweden. Seeing them alone would have made my first PHC experience worthwhile. Väsen consists of Roger Tallroth on guitar, Mikael Marin on the viola and Olav Johansson on the nyckelharpa (nyckel being the Swedish word for keys)
(You can buy their CD from http://www.cdroots.com/sweden.shtml , read about them at
http://www.inkblotmagazine.com/rev-archive/olov.htm and check out their site at their record label at http://www.noside.com/Catalog/CatalogAlbum_01.asp?Album_ID=188)
Väsen's first song was called "Vilse i Betlandet," a traditional song from the south of Sweden, which according to Olav is "about two men completely lost in a sugar beet field." It's not everyday I hear music so beautiful it makes me want to cry, but there were elements of ancient resonance here, and combined with the brightness of a contemporary mix Väsen's music shot straight to the heart. Pardon my French, but this group kicks ancient music ass, and has remarkable punch for a 3 piece.
Väsen's tour has apparently taken them from Seattle, to Southern California, Boulder Colorado and then to "Dulut!" (as Olav pronounced it) which drew some laughs, especially when Keillor referred to Duluth as somewhat of a transitional city between Boulder and St. Paul, saying it was kind of our own little Mediterranean.
Väsen's next tune was "Slunken," a supposedly "old traditional tune" that Mikael had composed just a year ago. The song was Nordic sounding, yet had a definite Celtic influence. Väsen's music carves its own definite nitch in ancient instrumental music. They've played with another of my favorites in contemporary classical music, the Kronos Quartet as well as the chart-topping folk-rock band Nordman.
"Slunken" starts out with sweet guitar that has a definite feel of homecoming--there's that ancient resonance again--when the fiddle and nyckelharpa join in. The scintillating and spiritual feel of this performance was not lost in the recording I heard on the radio the next day. (Cheers to the sound engineer, who just happens to be Jason Keillor)
In the interest of cultural exchange with Väsen, Garrison Keillor read a poem he had written about the Vikings, which was amusing in the words and phrases it chose to rhyme, but more serious in the political commentary and revisionist history it offered up about Christopher Columbus, and the ridiculousness of the notion that he actually discovered America. (Have they finally started teaching Columbus' legacy of genocide in the grade schools?) Anyway, Keillor's point was we all know it was Leif Erickson who came here first.
A second musical guest was Andrea Zonn, originally from Champagne, Illinois. Zonn is a classically trained violinist who used to play fiddle in country singer Vince Gills band. She's also played with Lyle Lovet, Allison Krauss, and she toured with James Taylor this past summer. Her debut album is called "Love Goes On". (Compass Records, 2003)
I wasn't terribly impressed with Zonn. She's got promise, but I'd rather see an act like hers at the Fine Line instead of the Fitzgerald. Zonn's first song was called "Heads up for the Wrecking Ball, which was a bouncy country tune written by Beth Nielson Chapman. Zonn said she like the song because it advises you to "Keep your chin up but watch out." Next came a song by Tom Kimmel and Jenny Yates called "Pages," that Zonn said was about being mindful and purposeful about how we make our choices. I found the song thoughtful, but felt it lacked artistic depth. Some lyrics were "You know me by the stories I have made," and raised the question, "In an ordinary life does the truth filter down through the ages?" To her credit though, Zonn's voice is sweet and distinct.
Then came a Guy Noire episode, featuring Sue Scott as Nicole. This skit involved Noire dreaming he was a movie star instead of a guy who needs to write term papers for high school students to eek out a living. A Noire sketch is something I definitely enjoy more on the radio. I'd rather imagine these stories unfolding in my minds eye than watch the characters take turns stepping up to the microphone while Tom Keith does his magic at the sound effects table.
I called my mom during the station break and told her to tune in. If she did as I suggested, she caught a decent Catsup Advisory Board Public Service Announcement, one of the goofiest features of PHC and one of my favorites. In this episode Jim had thrown away the crystals Barb had given him. This led to an interesting New Age discussion and Barb suggesting they attend a marriage retreat sponsored by the National Rifle Association. Of course all they really needed in their marriage was more catsup.
Fiddler Stuart Duncan was the next musical guest. Duncan is perhaps best-known as the founder of the Nashville Bluegrass Band. He performed a fun rendition of an old Appalachian tune called "Growlin' Old Man and Growlin' Old Woman mixed with "Angelina Baker."
Keillor's traditional shouts out and hellos came next. You can put yours in for future shows on the web here. "Hello to Dick, hoping you get your transplant" got a few laughs in the studio audience that you can't hear in the broadcast.
Highlights of the last part of the show including a skit where Keillor suggested that "Maybe we need to abandon the Christian faith and devote ourselves to pagan pleasures." After a pause, his remark that "They're making some progress on this in Minneapolis but St. Paul lags behind," drew a few laughs, and definitely got one from me.
There was also a short little paganism ditty: "Paganism…maybe we've been careful too long….we weren't that good at being Christians anyway. Maybe pagan hedonism is more our thing. Think about it…"
Of course, Vasen's last song was another highlight as Saturday's show was practically all about them for me. This final piece was a Polska composed 10 years ago (roughly) by Mikael called "Pedalpolska"
The show ended nicely with a country send off of "I Never go Around Mirrors".
One tip if you plan to attend Prairie Home Companion live: don't even think about trying to go to the bathroom during the five minute intermission, especially if you're female. Go during the show or the bathroom lines will stretch all the way to Lake Wobegon.
Fun link:
Quiz: http://www.prairiehome.org/trivia_quiz
Location Info:
Fitzgerald Theater
Artist Info: A Prairie Home Companion
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