Danielle Capalbo, a.k.a. daniprobably, took her time tuning her guitar midway through her set at Cafe Nine Monday night, telling the audience she didn’t want to take her tuner out.
“I just turned 31 and I don’t give a fuck anymore,” she said with a laugh and a smile, and many in the audience nodded and applauded, agreeing with her sentiments. It was an evening of speaking truths, of singing songs, and of performers letting the Cafe Nine stage once again become a place where everyone can be whoever they are and invite the audience along to listen and perhaps see themselves in the words and music as well.
This week’s Manic Monday show included Capalbo, American Elm (a.k.a. Chris Bousquet), and singer-songwriter Peter Oren from Columbus, Ind.
Capalbo took the stage first with her guitar and pedal board, which allowed her solo turn to become one that felt at times as if she had a full band at her feet. As she sang in her first song about “reality coming to greet me,” the music greeted the lyrics as well, both powerful and haunting but never competing with one another for time and space. Later she asked, “do you wanna go fishing? It’s just an excuse to talk,” which is what these songs felt like: the work of a poet who wants to simply talk to her audience, but with the punctuation of sound and vibe in between.
Guitar solos soared and wept, and when Capalbo sang “you are your own storyteller,” it was like a gentle coaxing to the audience that it was okay to speak their truth as well. By the time she got to her final song, where she asked, “do you want to go dancing?” the physicality of the music took her over and she set her guitar down and let herself move and dance, finding herself eventually down at the pedal board to end the set with a noisy, triumphant finish. The audience went wild.
“Wow, that’s the most applause I ever got at Cafe Nine,” she said, but she definitely earned it.
Bousquet also came to the stage with guitar and pedals, offering up a much more folky set of songs but with the same lyrical resonance. In “Prisoners” he sang of a shared sense of longing and isolation: “all that’s near and dear to me / is no longer near to me / And how should I go on / pretending nothing much has gone wrong / say the words / play the song / we’re all prisoners at dawn.”
His guitar gently coaxed his words along. He said the “therapist in his head” told him to play his third song, one he said he had only played two times before and had been hesitant to perform generally, but then said he felt like he could give it a shot. It was the stunningly poetic “Evaporates” from his 2015 EP Into the Light Within, in which he asked, “what is between the wave and the sea / maybe it’s become an obsession to me. I’m starting to evaporate / I’m tired of this liquid state,” and not unlike Capalbo gave the audience a perspective that at once seemed both personal and universal.
He was joined by friend and fellow singer songwriter Frank Critelli for his final two songs, the last one being his latest release, A Long Road to Be Free, a more upbeat tune that had Critelli clapping along and a few audience members clapping as well. This set was also incredibly well received and Bousquet left the stage humbly appreciative.
The final act, Peter Oren, came to the stage joined by Michael James Queenan on guitar and Terry Newman on pedal steel and bass guitars. Oren mentioned that it was his first time playing in New Haven and his first time at Cafe Nine. He spoke frankly between songs about the state of the union as well as the state of the planet.
“I’m mad about a lot of things,” he said, “but we’ll get to that.”
Many of his songs were from his most recent release, Anthropocene, which is the name of the stage in the earth’s history we’re living in now — in which man has caused changes in the environment affecting all livings being as well as the earth itself. One of the songs from this album, “Falling Water,” was about the “discontent with the place where you are from,” he said, noting the the current vice president also had ties to his hometown. The lyrics of this song included the lines “I don’t know why I came / from this place Columbus, Indiana / But it sure does feel strange / Coming from a place so named / after a killer and a misnomer.”
Another called “Throwdown” was preceded by Oren stating: “we’re gonna get a little bit angry really quick, but then we’ll calm down and it will all be easy going after that.” Oren’s lyrics, although framed in a serious and meaningful tone, were still delivered in a deep and rich vocal styling accompanied by his deft and gentle guitar plucking and both Queenan’s and Newman’s own musical fullness. This was a set of storytelling music, stark, vibrant, and necessary, but there were also many moments of fun and sweetness, including a song about time in San Francisco called “French Press,” before which he mentioned the coffee mugs he made to go along with that song back in 2016 when it was released, which he was selling at his merch table. The audience continually responded with great kindness to these songs and these musicians, and Oren’s voice was a new and welcomed addition to the others on this stage — one that allows so many the freedoms we all hope to have to speak our truths.
Oren’s song “New Gardens” had been around for a while, he said, but had been added to the new album for its timely metaphors, including “saving the fences for the rabbits.”
“There’ll be room for everyone / and we all need a home,” he sang.
Peter Oren continues on tour with his next show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City on July 26. More info and tour dates can be found at his website.