Cat’s Cradle Carrboro, NC
Contact: paddy@tmwrk.net
Web: sierrahull.com
Players: Sierra Hull, vocals, mandolins, guitars; Shaun Richardson, guitar; Avery Merritt, fiddle; Erik Coveney, bass; Mark Raudabaugh, drums
Bluegrass, jazzgrass, kickassgrass, and more, this show was a study in possibilities. It’s what happens when you shoehorn outstanding players, big notes, and great material through Bill Monroe’s garden hose. Out comes a bluegrass bomb cyclone that takes the genre and drop kicks it through the musical goal post and scores at Carnegie Hall, The Ryman, The Grand Ole’ Opry, and in Carrboro, NC at The Cat’s Cradle.
Sierra Hull brought her unique groove and bluegrass-highway mandolin style to an almost full house of adoring and appreciative fans. The guardrails disappeared as she revved up this bluegrass bomb-juggernaut and burst onto the stage with a series of jams and songs from her newest record A Tip Toe High Wire, her fourth studio effort and her first in five years after leaving Rounder Records. From the moment Sierra Hull walked on stage, it was clear this was not another granola crunchin’ run-of-the-mill bluegrass schmooze fest. Within minutes, this musical freight train was off and running and the rock mist that slowly seeped out onto the stage added to the oddly ethereal quality of this bluegrass breakdown; fast, rip-tear-snappin’, and joyfully careening all over the stage! The opening jam was a blizzard of perfect notes—all syncrogrooved, each note struggling to get ahead of the others and in doing so creating a musical tidal wave of immense proportions—all led by a waif of a girl, seemingly at one with her mandolin and pulling her quartet right along with her, like they were all emerging out of the deep holler in Byrdstown, TN after a long winter.
Everything was hitting on all cylinders as the individual musicians took turns guiding their musical Tennessee thoroughbred out of the gate: Shaun Richardson had near perfect guitar timing with riffs that fitted seamlessly into the fabric, followed by Avery Merritt on fiddle who was on fire the instant Hull looked his way. Standing behind Richardson, bass magician Erik Coveney was freed from the “one-five-one” bass cage and plucked n’ bowed his way through the evening with innovative lines all in perfect symmetry while sharing his deliciously timed grooves with drummer Mark Raudabaugh.
And at center stage behind the microphone, dancing and gyrating to this cyclone, Miss Hull was the ringmaster, effortlessly guiding her talented ensemble through selections from this new record and showing a remarkable command of the stage, who seemed connected to her by the music via some yet undiscovered neural mandolin-guitar-grooveway.
This was as sophisticated a performance as has yet appeared on the Cat’s Cradle stage.
