Brian Slattery Photos
Lindley Creek.
From the stage, Joe Delillo of Audrey Mae, the regional bluegrass band opening for touring national act Lindley Creek, asked what could have been a dangerous question: “Who in here is not having a good time?” The capacity crowd at Cafe Nine responded with dead silence. Delillo smiled. “Good,” he said, to cheers. It was a joyful moment that embodied a night of bluegrass raucous enough to bring people out in droves to the club on State and Crown for a late summer acoustic throwdown.
Audrey Mae — Peter Winne on guitar and vocals, Joe Delillo on bass and vocals, Joe Lemeris on banjo, and Sam McDougle on fiddle and mandolin — burst out of the gate, playing its first few high-energy songs without interruption. The approach grabbed the audience at once, who got quiet to listen to it all and then exploded in applause.
Delillo beamed. “We’re going to slow it down a little,” he said.
“Awww,” several in the audience responded. But it was worth it, as the Flatt and Scruggs song they played let Winne and Delillo showcase their tight, lonesome harmonies. As the set progressed, the band set its hook in the audience deeper and deeper, whether it was McDougle, Lemeris, and Delillo cranking out a fiddle tune while Winne danced, the band jamming on a Stanley Brothers classic, or everyone ripping through the Lemeris original tune “Bad Fret.” The band members had obvious musical and personal chemistry, and the audience loved it.
Delillo took time to shout out Cafe Nine, “a place that if you drove by it on State House, you wouldn’t even know it was there. But this place has so much history, so much culture.” He then lauded Lindley Creek, the headliners. “Those guys are profesionals,” he said.
“We got day jobs,” responded Winne, who is a gardener. “I’ll mow your lawn, literally. Come talk to me afterward.”
The band’s joking banter enhanced the music and brought them and the audience closer together. “This next one’s about divorce,” Delillo said toward the end of the set. “Anybody divorced out there?”
“Everybody!” an audience member shouted, to laughter.
Audrey Mae played what it thought was its last number, but the crowd disagreed. Answering the call for one more, the quartet assembled on the floor in front of the stage for a last, a cappella number, creating an intimate moment that also left the crowd thoroughly warmed up for the headliner.
Following Audrey Mae’s lead, Lindley Creek — a family band from Buffalo, Mo., made up of Katie Greer Hutson on mandolin, Jase Greer on fiddle, Caroline Greer on dobro, Kathie Greer on guitar, and John Rob Greer on bass, with everyone singing — leapt into its first number with no introduction.
While Audrey Mae had hewed to a more traditional bluegrass sound, Lindley Creek went more progressive, infusing pop melodies, structures, and rhythms into its songs. The band indulged in the kind of tight harmony singing only family members really get to do with one another, and their balletic movement around the stage to give everyone their chance in the spotlight proved mesmerizing.
Musically, the band ultimately rested on Katie Greer Hutson’s powerful singing, and even more, on the musical bond she shared with brother Jase, as mandolin and fiddle traded phrases and ideas. Lindley Creek’s music was the perfect accompaniment for the cooling summer night, the kind of music that promising everything was going to be all right. For a couple hours, it really was.