Mosquito Fleet / Milano Concert Review

This past Friday night, some friends of mine, Mosquito Fleet, performed at the local coffee shop, La Spiaza. While I don’t exactly like the “venue” or their coffee. Or the owner. Or how they treat the artists who perform there. I do like the atmosphere when there’s great, live music being played. Opening for Mosquito Fleet was a band called Milano – some very talented chaps from Chicago, whose lead singer, Joe Guerra, is artist-in-residence at The Line Church in Lincoln Park. Pretty cool gig, if you ask me…

So about the concert…
In a word: impressive.
I only caught a few tunes from Milano, but what I heard was polished, refreshing, a combination of alternative, folk-rock, and a hint of traditional country.
Mosquito Fleet? I love these guys. They bring it every time they perform, and this concert, the record release show for their new EP, was no exception. Without the luxury of having stage monitors, the band did more than just keep it together. Standing at the front, right up against the band – within inches of Josh, the bassist, and feet of everyone else, I had a chance to look back in to the audience and take pictures of the scene in my mind:
Laughter. Heads moving. The floor bowed down with each kick drum hit from feet jumping ever-so-slightly to the beat. Bass emanating from the house speakers gave me blurred vision. And several faces with glazed-over eyes, lips pursed and turned up with joy as ears take it all in: lyrics. music. life.
Even with flawed lead vocals on a number of songs – no doubt caused, in part, by the lack of monitors – Mosquito Fleet still got their point across: they love performing the music they write for the people who love it and they don’t ever want to stop.

Long Saturday

I finally feel mostly recovered from this past Saturday. From 9 AM until 5 PM, I was recording with The City and Restoration Project at the Dragon Room. Then, at 6:30 PM, I packed up my gear for a performance in Elmhurst, IL, at Cuvee Cellars. I arrived back home at 11:45 PM. Long day? I’ll say so.

Saturday was a super-productive session, recording cello for two songs, for two different records coming out in the next four months. “Jump” is a song that I wrote, and The City decided to record a down-tempo version of the song – quite obviously different from the version found on my new solo album, “Fundamental.” The other song, “O Love Divine” will be on ResProj’s upcoming April release. Thank you so much, Jason Young, for your hard work on these parts. You were great!