{"id":4041,"date":"2010-07-19T16:09:46","date_gmt":"2010-07-19T20:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.opticality.com\/blog\/?p=4041"},"modified":"2010-07-19T16:14:43","modified_gmt":"2010-07-19T20:14:43","slug":"rosi-golan-and-william-fitzsimmons-at-jammin-java","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/19\/rosi-golan-and-william-fitzsimmons-at-jammin-java\/","title":{"rendered":"Rosi Golan and William Fitzsimmons at Jammin Java"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve waited way too long to catch a Rosi Golan<\/a> set. I\u2019ve seen her perform a song or two here and there. I\u2019ve even caught a complete set of her performing her new side project The Open Sea<\/a> with Ari Hest<\/a> (I can\u2019t wait for the upcoming EP, the two of them are magic<\/strong> together!).<\/p>\n

I love Rosi\u2019s current CD The Drifter and the Gypsy and am looking forward to her upcoming CD as well.<\/p>\n

One of the few benefits of living in NY and working in VA (say what?) is that we get more opportunities to catch our favorite musicians. When I noticed that Rosi was playing at Jammin\u2019 Java<\/a> (a venue we really like a lot) I made sure that our July trip south would include that date. We brought three friends with us to enjoy the show.<\/p>\n

Rosi Golan has an extraordinary voice. Range, power, clarity even at the softest moments, all deliciously delivered. She is an excellent songwriter too. Her lyrics are sticky as are her melodies.<\/p>\n

\"RosiGolan1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For those of you who haven\u2019t heard her, I would liken her somewhat to The Weepies<\/a> in overall feel and sound. That said, while I love The Weepies, Rosi\u2019s voice is incalculably more beautiful.<\/p>\n

\"RosiGolan2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rosi accompanies herself nicely on the guitar. Last night, she was supported on every number by Jake Phillips<\/a> on guitar and harmony. Jake was amazing on both and really enhanced the sound (not that Rosi needs help).<\/p>\n

\"JakePhillipsGuitar\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rosi performed at least four songs from The Drifter and the Gypsy CD, including Think of Me, which I play very often and was hoping to hear live. Thanks Rosi! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"RosiGolanHadar\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rosi was on for roughly 40 minutes, every one of them wonderful.<\/p>\n

William Fitzsimmons<\/a> was the headliner. Rosi has been opening for William on much of his current tour, but not every night. I normally cover the headliner first, but since we specifically went to see Rosi, I reversed my usual order.<\/p>\n

\"WilliamFitzsimmons1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was our first time seeing William. In fact, we only heard about him because I was tracking Rosi.<\/p>\n

William plays the guitar beautifully (more on that in a bit) and sings nicely. He\u2019s extremely<\/strong> mellow in his delivery. Surprisingly so, because when he speaks, he has a deep rich voice, but when he sings, it\u2019s an octave higher and pretty soft.<\/p>\n

\"WilliamFitzsimmons2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

William is very funny (not just to my taste, because most of the sold-out crowd was chucking or guffawing along with me). He\u2019s extremely self-deprecating. I am sure that I would go see him if he was a stand-up comic.<\/p>\n

As he himself will tell you, most of his songs are angst-ridden, not exactly pick-me-ups. They\u2019re delivered really well, but given his soft vocals, it can be hard for newcomers to pick up all the words (clearly, a very integral part of the William Fitzsimmons experience!).<\/p>\n

In contrast, I am flabbergasted by how well Rosi enunciates even when nearly whispering (check out the crispness of the last \u201cs\u201d in \u201cghosts\u201d, which I couldn\u2019t believe I could hear each times she sang\/whispered it!).<\/p>\n

Because of the above, a number of William\u2019s songs feel similar (when the lyrics should be the big differentiators). Still, I enjoyed the full set, without wishing for any song to just be over.<\/p>\n

Back to the guitar. Jake Phillips also accompanied William on all but two songs. The two of them were mesmerizing on the guitars on each and every song. They complement each other beautifully, with William starting most songs off with a finger-picking style that hooks you instantly, and then Jake dancing in and around that with a combination flat-picking and finger-picking lead\/harmony.<\/p>\n

\"JakePhillipsWilliamFitzsimmons\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jake also sang harmony with William (very nicely), but he was a bit softer than he was with Rosi. Even if neither of them had sung the entire evening, watching and listening to the two of them play guitar together would have been worth the price of admission. Jake also played banjo on one number, which made for a very interesting sound with William\u2019s guitar play.<\/p>\n

Rosi joined the two of them for a four songs. The first was a Rosi number that William had recorded with her a while ago, Hazy (he\u2019s featured on it on the above-mentioned CD). Rosi also came back out for the last song in a two-song encore to close the show.<\/p>\n

Before that last song, William asked Rosi to be the applause-o-meter for a contest to see who played the guitar better, he or Jake. When he asked the audience about Jake first, the applause was deafening, so it was obvious that asking about himself was going to be somewhere between amusing and embarrassing.<\/p>\n

But, here\u2019s the thing. If Jake was an 8 on a scale of 1-10, then William was a 7.8. Meaning, the deafening win for Jake was not even the slightest knock on William\u2019s play, just an acknowledgement that Jake was highlighted a bit more, and didn\u2019t disappoint throughout both Rosi and William\u2019s sets.<\/p>\n

William Fitzsimmons can definitely hold his own on the guitar, and did so extremely well on his two completely solo numbers, and on every other number when he picked the main theme (which Jake adorned).<\/p>\n

A wonderful night out. I can finally scratch off my list the need to see Rosi Golan performing a full set of her own creations. That said, it doesn\u2019t mean that I won\u2019t want to see a lot more, just that it won\u2019t be on my bucket list. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a shot of Rosi with her manager, David Margolis:<\/p>\n

\"RosiGolanDavidMargolis\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve waited way too long to catch a Rosi Golan set. I\u2019ve seen her perform a song or two here and there. I\u2019ve even caught a complete set of her performing her new side project The Open Sea with Ari Hest (I can\u2019t wait for the upcoming EP, the two of them are magic together!). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,17,2],"tags":[539,697,581,1367,624,698,293,696],"class_list":["post-4041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-music","category-2","tag-ari-hest","tag-jake-phillips","tag-jammin-java","tag-music","tag-rosi-golan","tag-the-open-sea","tag-the-weepies","tag-william-fitzsimmons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4041"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4043,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4041\/revisions\/4043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}