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chuckroWe saw 10,000 Maniacs perform at City Winery. Among other things, because I spotted these tickets early, we got really good seats—as in, three seats away from the stage and facing in the right direction.
(A bit of history for those unfamiliar: 10,000 Maniacs was formed in 1981, with Natalie Merchant as the lead singer, Robert Buck as the lead guitarist, and the two of them co-writing most of the music. Merchant’s deep and often depressing lyrics were counterbalanced by Buck’s flowery, happy music. Merchant left the group in 1993 and they brought on Mary Ramsey as the lead singer / co-writer. The albums released after 1993 were…generally not very good. They’re happy fluff about nature. Buck died in 2000, but the group has reconstituted around Ramsey and the other three founding members to tour.)
I’ve always been less than enthused by Mary Ramsey on the studio albums—in a lot of ways, she’s the poor man’s Natalie Merchant. That said, the poor man is still doing pretty well here: She’s very good in concert and she’s an amazing violinist. The concert had a slightly rough start, partially because the venue didn’t turn off the ad boards or adjust the lighting until their first song was done, partially because they didn’t really tell any stories, and partially because they back-loaded the stronger parts of their catalog. Ramsey’s impressive violin work was all in the second half. The “get up and dance” segment of the program (mostly “My Sister Rose”) was four songs from the end. “Pit Viper”, the second song they wrote and one that hasn’t been seen on an album since 1983 (for good reason) was early in the show. This is a band with a very deep, very strong catalog (even if you accept that there were maybe two really good songs in the post-Merchant era), they didn’t need to load up the show with weaker cuts.
Interesting trivia: Merchant sang the wrong lyrics to “Because the Night” in what was arguably their biggest hit and the most well-known version of that song…so those were the lyrics Ramsey sang in concert. Similarly, Ramsey was very clearly referring to a lyrics sheet for “Tension Makes a Tangle”, which Jethrien picked up on. I’m not terribly surprised about this, since that was the first song the band wrote together and the very first attempt to marry Merchant’s poetry to Buck’s music. It borders of REM-esque word salad. I’m really good at lyrics, and I can’t remember most of that one!
But like a number of concerts of artists I’ve liked since I was a teenager, this stirred up a lot of good emotions and reminded me of a lot of songs that mean a lot to me. If you don’t know their catalogue at all, then I’ll just leave you with Trouble Me.
(A bit of history for those unfamiliar: 10,000 Maniacs was formed in 1981, with Natalie Merchant as the lead singer, Robert Buck as the lead guitarist, and the two of them co-writing most of the music. Merchant’s deep and often depressing lyrics were counterbalanced by Buck’s flowery, happy music. Merchant left the group in 1993 and they brought on Mary Ramsey as the lead singer / co-writer. The albums released after 1993 were…generally not very good. They’re happy fluff about nature. Buck died in 2000, but the group has reconstituted around Ramsey and the other three founding members to tour.)
I’ve always been less than enthused by Mary Ramsey on the studio albums—in a lot of ways, she’s the poor man’s Natalie Merchant. That said, the poor man is still doing pretty well here: She’s very good in concert and she’s an amazing violinist. The concert had a slightly rough start, partially because the venue didn’t turn off the ad boards or adjust the lighting until their first song was done, partially because they didn’t really tell any stories, and partially because they back-loaded the stronger parts of their catalog. Ramsey’s impressive violin work was all in the second half. The “get up and dance” segment of the program (mostly “My Sister Rose”) was four songs from the end. “Pit Viper”, the second song they wrote and one that hasn’t been seen on an album since 1983 (for good reason) was early in the show. This is a band with a very deep, very strong catalog (even if you accept that there were maybe two really good songs in the post-Merchant era), they didn’t need to load up the show with weaker cuts.
Interesting trivia: Merchant sang the wrong lyrics to “Because the Night” in what was arguably their biggest hit and the most well-known version of that song…so those were the lyrics Ramsey sang in concert. Similarly, Ramsey was very clearly referring to a lyrics sheet for “Tension Makes a Tangle”, which Jethrien picked up on. I’m not terribly surprised about this, since that was the first song the band wrote together and the very first attempt to marry Merchant’s poetry to Buck’s music. It borders of REM-esque word salad. I’m really good at lyrics, and I can’t remember most of that one!
But like a number of concerts of artists I’ve liked since I was a teenager, this stirred up a lot of good emotions and reminded me of a lot of songs that mean a lot to me. If you don’t know their catalogue at all, then I’ll just leave you with Trouble Me.
