Karen Ponzio Photo
While tuning her guitar MorganEve Swain of The Huntress and Holder of Hands thanked opening act Sam Moss and his band, including bass player Michael Siegel, for letting her use his upright bass to play with second act Daphne Lee Martin.
“We love those harmonies,” she said with a smile. It was a night of great harmonies and good company this week at another “Manic Monday” show at Cafe Nine, where audience and bands found a balance of kindness and kinship.
Opening act Sam Moss from Boston, accompanied by Siegel on upright bass and Benjamin Burns on drums, began delicately. Burns lightly guided the brushes over the drum. Moss fingerpicked his guitar and Siegel softly added bass. But with that song and each after they delivered sounds made sweeter by the vocals, which included at times two- and three-part harmonies. Moss mentioned that most of the songs they were playing that evening were from their latest album, Neon, which they had released a couple of months before. Many of the tunes explored themes of loss, but also forgiveness and hope. One had the sense of sitting on a big front porch listening to a bunch of friends talk and share their stories with the most melodic accompaniment, the soundtrack to a spring filled with warm days and cool nights. When Moss sang the song “Flowers” — asking, “are the flowers in your neighborhood in bloom?” — I almost expected to see daisies pop up and sway along. The band remained tight enough to deliver eight lovely tunes but loose enough to charm the audience.
Next to the stage was singer-songwriter Daphne Lee Martin from New London, joined by Swain on upright bass and James Maple on drums for a five-song set she said she wanted to keep short “so we can get The Huntress and Holder of Hands up here,” as she smiled at Swain. She also mentioned that the three of them were great friends and had been playing together a long time, including on her new album Scared Fearless, due to come out the end of June. Martin’s songs from that album, similar to Moss’s songs, had themes of loss, forgiveness and hope as well as love. Harmonies were also at the forefront, as Martin and Swain shared vocals on the sweet and strong “Songbirds,” which Martin aptly described as having a Grateful Dead feel to it.
Martin introduced the song “John Henry’s Lullaby,” as one she wrote for Maple as “my ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ song for him.” Jesse Newman of Olive Tiger also joined the band on violin for this song and stayed for the two after, providing a seamless and blissful interaction with Martin’s guitar work that gave the songs another level of sweetness. Martin ended with the songs “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down” and “‘Til We Meet Again,” adding more harmonies and a deeper, bluesier sound that showed off the richness of her vocals. The band had a lot of laughs in between and the audience, by now more filled in and nearer to the stage, received them with the same joy that they offered.
The final act of the night, The Huntress and Holder of Hands, saw Swain returning to the stage on vocals and multiple instruments including guitar, viola, and ukulele as well as Maple returning on drums. They were joined by Liz Eisenberg on upright bass and vocals, Emily Dix Thomas on cello and vocals, and Chris Sadlers on electric bass. Swain, Eisenberg and Thomas began with a symphony of strings so powerful it seemed as if there was a full orchestra, next adding three-part harmonies that silenced the now-full room. The vocals ranged from solo to two-part to three-part for the rest of the set, with Swain on lead for most and Thomas taking on lead for the number “Rocky Coast.” Swain also switched from viola to guitar during the set, bantering with the band and the audience as she tuned.
“How’s life in New Haven?” she asked. She got a few laughs in response as well as a “Providence is better!” shout out from an audience member that also garnered laughs.
The audience was taken from moment one; you could tell there were old friends and dedicated fans in the crowd, singing along and swaying to the sounds, cameras and phones out recording the proceedings while each song was received with hearty applause and hooting and hollering.
Never was this more apparent than when Swain introduced a song by Brown Bird, the band she had been in previously with her husband Dave Lamb, who passed in 2014. Almost as soon as the first bars of the song “Bilgewater” were played, the crowd went wild, and band and many audience members broke out in smiles. Songs like “Call to Arms,” “Borealis,” and “Severed Soul” combined sweeping orchestral sounds with a metal-tinged Americana, all layered with a deep bass and drum backbeat that gave it all a blues feel when it needed it as well. The audience didn’t want the set to end, and when it did, the band was welcomed into the audience warmly by friends and fans alike, couples and groups gathering to share.
Before Martin’s song “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down,” she said that it was about “taking full advantage of the time you have with someone…. If you want to tell someone you love them, do it.”