Sean Watkins & the Bee Eaters at Fifth Street Farms, April 1, 2018

Steven Friedland presents Sean Watkins & the Bee Eaters
Fifth Street Farms
1517 Fifth St, Berkeley, CA 94710-1712 USA
7:30 PM, Sunday, April 1, 2018

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2018 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2018 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

[7:32 PM lights down, announcements from Steven]

1. [7:41 PM] Blue Darlin' (LM)
   [add Aerie Walker]
2. [7:45 PM] (unidentified Swedish tune)
   [drop Aerie Walker]
3. [7:48 PM] Trouble in Mind (E)
   [LM swaps to acoustic guitar]
4. [7:52 PM] Lord, Won't You Help Me? (LM)
   [E/LM swap instruments; add Tristan Claridge]
5. [7:56 PM] Any Old Time
   [set ends 7:59 PM; girls off, Simon and Tashina up without pause]

1. [8:00 PM] (unidentified instrumental #1): (Tashina violin solo) » [8:02 PM] (Simon solo) » [8:03 PM] (Tristan solo) » (all together)
   [add Sean Watkins]
2. [8:06 PM] Wave As We Run
3. [8:10 PM] ? (unidentified, maybe Last Time for Everything? lyrics I thought I heard: “down with these endings” / “wasting my time”)
   [banter from Sean]
4. [8:16 PM] Don't Say You Love Me
   [add LM: harmony vox]
5. [8:22 PM] Graceland
   [drop LM, SW]
6. [8:28 PM] (unidentified instrumental #2)
7. [8:33 PM] Eleanor Rigby
   [add LM, SW; Sean introduces the next tune as one about “the guy who writes the rules”]
8. [8:38 PM] What to Fear
9. [8:44 PM] 21st of May
   [set ends 8:47 PM]

[9:10 PM lights down, comments from Steven]
[Sean introduces the next tune as one about the shortfalls of homeschooling while Tristan sets up his cello]

1. [9:14 PM] Where You Were Living
   [add Tashina, Simon, Leila]
2. [9:17 PM] Too Little, Too Late
   [drop LM; add Ellie]
3. [9:21 PM] (unidentified instrumental #3)
   [drop Ellie, SW]
4. [9:28 PM] (unidentified instrumental #4)
   [add kids: MQ, TQ, AW, TW, Ellie]
5. [9:34 PM] (unidentified instrumental #5)
   [drop kids; add SW]
6. [9:40 PM] All I Do Is Lie
   [add LM]
7. [9:47 PM] Somebody More Like You
   [add MQ, TQ]
8. [9:51 PM] I'm On My Way Back to the Old Home
   [set ends 9:55 PM; all off!]
   
   Encore (just Sean Watkins & the Bee Eaters)
9. [9:57 PM] You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
   [show ends 10:01 PM]

• Sean Watkins: acoustic guitar, lead vox;

the Bee Eaters

• Simon Chrisman: hammer dulcimer;
• Tristan Claridge: cello, harmony vox;
• Tashina Claridge: violin.

• ?Ellie?: violin, acoustic guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• ?Leila Miyake?: violin, acoustic guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• Miles Quale: violin;
• Teo Quale: mandolin;
• Aerie Walker: cello;
• Tuki Walker: violin;

House concerts are usually a nice change from the usual sort of event, and tonight's gig was no exception. We showed up just a few minutes after the offical door time to find the place already overflowing (Steven commented later that he was worried he'd allowed too many people to come), with plenty of snacks and drinks to share. It was fun talking to various folks, greeting friends and making new ones while we waiting for the show to get going.

Eventually Steven called us inside from the deck, and we took our seats to an unexpected opening set from “Ellie and Leila.” My guess is that maybe these girls were friends or students of the Claridges? I think Steven may have introduced Ellie as a Berklee student, but as I was still getting to my seat, I wasn't really listening, and if the connection was explained, I wasn't paying attention! Anyways, the girls started with a rousing fiddle duet on Leslie Lyle's Blue Darlin', a #1 Grand Ole Opry hit for Jimmy Newman from 1955, then followed it up with an “(unidentified Swedish tune)” – unidentified because neither Ellie nor Leila could remember or pronounce the proper Swedish title!

Up next was the 1924 blues, Trouble in Mind, with Ellie singing lead. Won me over, right quick! For the last pair of tunes, the girls varied their sound by having one play acoustic guitar instead of violin. First was Leila, singing lead on Norman Blake's Lord Won't You Help Me, and afer handing the guitar to Ellie, the set closed with the Artie Shaw/Billie Holiday classic, Any Old Time, reinterpreted for acoustic string band (and featuring a nice scat solo from Leila).

Since Tristan had crept up onstage and joined in on that last one, the set-turnover took practically no time, and as soon as Tashina and Simon were in place, the Bee Eaters' portion of the night began. Each member of the band soloed briefly, then they joined together to wrap things up on the initial, unidentified tune.

Sean Watkins stepped up next, delivering an impassioned vocal on Wave As We Run. I think the following tune was Last Time for Everything from his latest album, but the lyrics I jotted in my notes don't match what's posted online, so the ID is uncertain for now.

Sean stopped the proceedings briefly to ask us how many of us had been dumped for the wrong reason (of course his actual story was a bit longer and more detailed, but that's my best recollection, and my notes only say “words from Sean”), his way of introducing Don't Say You Love Me, which features the excellent kiss-off tag-line “Leave your sugar on the shelf.”

When Sean mentioned that the next tune was going to be a Paul Simon cover, I guessed that we were going to get 50 Ways, but instead I was surprised with Graceland, featuring harmony vocals (can't leave out those “woo-woos”) from Tristan and Leila. Sean and Leila stepped offstage after that croud-pleaser, leaving the Bee Eaters to perform two more instrumentals.

Upon coming back onstage, Sean spoke briefly about the work of writing tunes before What to Fear, then digressed again to talk about how billboards put up by Harold Camping announcing the Rapture on 5/21/11 stimulated the not-so-surprisingly titled 21st of May. Happily for us heathens, Campings prediction of fire and brimstone turned out to be false, meaning that some seven years later, we're free to congregate and commune as like spirits rather than tortured souls (oh wait, maybe 11/8/16 was the Rapture, and we've been in hell since then).

Following a proper set break (yay, time for more snacks!), the show resumed with a darkly sarcastic “homeschooling tune”, Where You Were Living, performed as a duet by Sean and Tristan. Simon and Tashina then took their places onstage, and Too Little, Too Late offered an upbeat counterpoint, with sweet harmony vocals added by Leila.

This segued into three unidentified instrumentals, each performed by different groupings. For the first, Ellie returned to the stage to play fiddle next to Tashina. With both Sean and Ellie stepping offstage after the conclusion of that one, the second tune featured only the Bee Eaters. For the third tune, Ellie returned, along with the four members of the Jubilee Band: twins Aerie & Tuki Walker, and brothers Miles & Teo Quale – all students of the Claridges. Despite the abundance of players – too many to fit into the small stage space, really! – things worked out well. Good to see young 'uns working their way up!

Sean then returned to perform two more of his tunes, All I Do Is Lie and Somebody More Like You before calling the Quale brothers back for a fired up run through Bill Monroe's I'm On My Way Back to the Old Home. Teo deserves special mention for shredding the mandolin on that one: he's darn good for a pre-teen!

After a very brief encore break – just long enough for us all to stand up, hoot, stomp and holler for more! – Sean and the Bee Eaters returned to regale us with a poignant goodbye message, courtesy of Bob Dylan, You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go. A most excellent and fitting choice to wrap things up tonight. As an aside, I think it's hilarious to run into folks who think this is a Miley Cyrus tune. Uhhhhh, yep! Ain't nothing wrong with standing up for your girl, but Miley hadn't even been born when ol' Bob wrote that one.

I've mailed a few folks for help ID'ing our opening performers – if anyone fills me in, I'll amend this report appropriately!

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2018 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2018 event list! ☸ On to the next event!