Mat Crowley, vocalist and mandolinist for Goodnight Blue Moon, looked over the packed house at Cafe Nine from the stage. It was 11:50 on Friday night.
“Hey, did the government shut down yet?” he asked.
“No!” someone from the crowd yelled.
“We don’t need them anyway,” Crowley joked.
Brian Slattery Photo
The New Haven-based Goodnight Blue Moon was nearing the end of an evening of music that found the Crown Street club packed for hours. It had started at 9 p.m. with Dave Coon spinning vinyl from turntables he’d set up near the stage. His selections of classic R&B set the tone for the night. Maybe the political situation down in D.C. was tense and getting more tense, but inside Cafe Nine, people had come to relax, talk, and even dance.
Stefanie Austin and the Palomino Club, also based in New Haven, warmed up the stage with a set of originals and covers that ranged from Merle Haggard to Gillian Welch, all delivered in a twang that tipped its hat to the swing and strut of 1970s outlaw country. Austin has been writing and performing solo for years and in early 2017 decided to form a full band, made up of Hoss Austin on bass, Ant Frosolone on drums, Ryan Hull on lead guitar, and Tiffany Ballero on harmonica and backup vocals.
The Palomino Club proved a cohesive unit that kept the music’s texture interesting while always putting the song — and Austin on vocals — front and center. Austin, meanwhile, had a catalog of strong songs, a honeyed yet gritty singing voice, a cheering fan base, and amiable banter between songs (“so many of you! And you’re all so attractive!” she said looking over the crowd at the beginning of her set). She nodded approvingly as the people toward the front of the stage went from standing to moving, urged on by the band’s energy.
“I see you cuties dancing up there!” she said, beaming.
After another short set from Coon on the turntables, Goodnight Blue Moon — Erik Elligers on vocals and guitar, Mat Crowley on vocals and mandolin, Nancy Matlack on vocals, cello, and keyboard, Sean Rubin on vocals and bass, Vicki Wepler on vocals and violin, and Nick D’Errico on drums — took and filled the stage. As the description of the band’s lineup might suggest, the group’s hallmark is the rich sound it creates through tight harmonies and arrangements. They began with a number featuring only voices and clapping, an early highlight, before moving through a set that delighted their fans with numbers ranging from contemplative to raucous.
Goodnight Blue Moon is preparing for the release of a new album in April, and so teased its set with a couple of new songs. Fans of the group’s first two releases, How Long and Hollow, got what they came for, too, as they clapped and sang along to their favorites. As the midnight hour — and the deadline for Congress to avoid a shutdown — approached, the band seemed almost to be responding to it. “Turn this ship around and let me sail back out to sea,” they sang in full-throated harmonies, the crowd clapping and shouting along. “Must have been we wandered, we never been here before.”
Shortly before midnight, Elligers announced that “we got a little slow jam here, if there’s someone you like, or are thinking of liking a little more.” The band launched into its song “Baby,” and couples near the stage began to sway back and forth, holding each other in their arms. Those of us whose phones were set to notify us of news alerts might have felt a buzzing in our pockets just after midnight, but nobody called attention to it. In Washington, the federal government may have stopped workng. But on Crown Street, there was just the band’s sweet sound and the slow ripple of movement, back and forth, through the crowd.
“Thanks for slow dancing,” Elligers said, giving off his biggest smile of the night. “That was inspiring. I’m going to write some more of those.”
But not yet. “Kick it back up,” Matlack said. The band did. They joked about maybe playing all night, and got pretty far. And the crowd stayed until the end.