{"id":4467,"date":"2010-09-14T14:13:02","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T18:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.opticality.com\/blog\/?p=4467"},"modified":"2010-09-14T15:23:20","modified_gmt":"2010-09-14T19:23:20","slug":"martin-rivas-and-rachel-platten-at-rockwood-music-hall-stage-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/14\/martin-rivas-and-rachel-platten-at-rockwood-music-hall-stage-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Rivas and Rachel Platten at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

In yesterday\u2019s post<\/a> I mentioned that I expected to knock another 1.5 items off my music bucket list. I\u2019m upgrading the .5 to a full point! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Not only did I get to finally see Martin Rivas<\/a> perform a full set, but it was different than I expected (his adoring fans clearly knew what they were in for) in two wonderful ways.<\/p>\n

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

First, Martin had two lead electric guitar players and both happen to be among my individual favorites (we\u2019ll get to the band shortly).<\/p>\n

Much more important, while I\u2019ve seen people rave about Martin being a Rock \u2018N Roller, I have only ever gotten a hint<\/em> of that, as most of his previous sets were acoustic or mixed in nature.<\/p>\n

Last night was full-on Rock, with a dab of Soul (hard rocking soul!) thrown in for good measure. The place (Rockwood Music Hall<\/a> Stage 2) was electric. Everyone around me was physically<\/strong> participating in the music. If you were just sitting there, it would have been prudent to check for a pulse!<\/p>\n

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

Martin was his usual shining light. I love his voice. His guitar playing is excellent, but he purposely takes a back seat when he has the full band on stage and just plays mostly rhythm (he somewhat picked on one number).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the band, standing left-to-right on the stage:<\/p>\n

Patrick Firth<\/a> electric keyboards and background vocals. Patrick is excellent (we\u2019ve seen him before on a grand piano). Last night he had stacked keyboards. I think he had one set to a more organ sound and the other a more piano one.<\/p>\n

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

Chris Kuffner<\/a> on electric guitar and background vocals. One night after finally seeing Chris play the bass, he was back to electric guitar. Given the rocking going on, that was awesome and freeing for Chris, as he wailed on a number of leads, fingers flying.<\/p>\n

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

Craig Meyer on drums (still no good individual link). Craig kept the beat going strong with really tasty riffs. His smile alone is worth the price of admission (in this case, free, but a one drink minimum). \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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

Brian Killeen<\/a> on electric bass and background vocals (the link is to an unmaintained MySpace page). Brian is solid all around.<\/p>\n

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

Greg Mayo<\/a> on electric guitar, lap steel guitar and background vocals. We\u2019ve only seen Greg once before (also playing with Martin) and he was an instant favorite. Buttery smooth guitar playing. He and Chris shared the leads equally and beautifully. Greg is still on my bucket list to see playing his own stuff as a headliner.<\/p>\n

\"GregMayo\"<\/a> \"GregMayoLapSteelGuitar\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rachel Platten<\/a> joined Martin for one song. Rachel headlined the set before Martin\u2019s and she is the other full point<\/em> that I wanted\/needed to cross off my list. Check.<\/p>\n

\"MartinRivasRachelPlatten2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Until my friend pointed it out to me before the set began, I didn\u2019t realize that I had seen Rachel perform (ever-so-briefly). She and Kailin Garrity<\/a> sang harmony\/backup with Martin Rivas at the Haiti Benefit in January. I didn\u2019t catch Rachel\u2019s name that night.<\/p>\n

Last night it was Rachel front-and-center. Rachel has a gorgeous voice and plays keyboards really well (last night electric). The set was mostly Pop\/Rock. The energy was fantastic, with a similarity in the crowd\u2019s visceral reaction to what I described above for Martin.<\/p>\n

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

There\u2019s a sweetness to Rachel that is evident in her performance. Her smile is wide and never disappears during the set. She connects with many people in the audience.<\/p>\n

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

If you\u2019re looking to catch a fun<\/strong> show, with upbeat lyrics and melodies, delivered with passion, played by excellent musicians, I highly recommend Rachel Platten.<\/p>\n

Backing Rachel were three of the same band members that played with Martin: Patrick Firth on keyboards, Craig Meyer on drums and Brian Killeen on bass.<\/p>\n

Martin Rivas played guitar and sang harmony with Rachel throughout her set.<\/p>\n

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

Nathan Eklund<\/a> on trumpet and background vocals. Excellent on the trumpet, added a nice touch to the all around great sound of Rachel\u2019s set.<\/p>\n

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

Lois had not recovered 100% so she couldn\u2019t join me again. Since I couldn\u2019t count on Allie Moss<\/a>\u2019 mom for photos (not that I knew I could in advance the night before), Lois handed me her camera as I was walking out the door. Any photo mishaps can only be blamed on me this time.<\/p>\n

Martin is playing again at Rockwood 1 this Friday night (Sep 17th, 2010) at 9pm. It will essentially be the same band, except that (lucky stiff) Brian Killeen will be in Las Vegas (my favorite city) so Chris Kuffner will be on bass.<\/p>\n

We aren\u2019t supposed to be in the city that night, but the enticement of Chris on the bass for an entire rock set might be enough for us to rearrange, plus Lois will get to see Martin do a full set as well. We\u2019re working on it. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Update<\/strong>: just heard that Chris might be out of town on Friday, so if we go, it will be to see Martin and the gang again. I’ll still be (not-so-patiently) waiting for another opportunity to see Chris on the bass. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

P.S. On the way out, I passed Derek James<\/a> (a lot of awesome musicians came out to hear Martin and Rachel!). I introduced myself and told him how incredible he is. There\u2019s one less musician in the world who needs to wonder what I think of them now. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

P.P.S. there\u2019s always time for a mini-rant. We\u2019ve been to Rockwood 1 & 2 so many times I can\u2019t count. All but two nights have run as close to clockwork as you can hope for. Last night was the second time that something went off the rails (before I got there) causing a major delay.<\/p>\n

The group that was supposed to be on from 9-10pm was still going strong at 10pm (the tip jar didn\u2019t even come out until 10:10, so they had to have started late). That caused Rachel\u2019s set to start at 10:50 rather than 10. Martin\u2019s set wasn\u2019t over until roughly 12:30am, making for a longer night than expected. Thank goodness it was incredible. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In yesterday\u2019s post I mentioned that I expected to knock another 1.5 items off my music bucket list. I\u2019m upgrading the .5 to a full point! \ud83d\ude09 Not only did I get to finally see Martin Rivas perform a full set, but it was different than I expected (his adoring fans clearly knew what they […]<\/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":[3,17,2],"tags":[757,699,715,758,513,1367,759,716,756,493],"class_list":["post-4467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3","category-music","category-2","tag-brian-killeen","tag-derek-james","tag-greg-mayo","tag-kailin-garrity","tag-martin-rivas","tag-music","tag-nathan-eklund","tag-patrick-firth","tag-rachel-platten","tag-rockwood-music-hall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4467","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=4467"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4472,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4467\/revisions\/4472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}