Karen Ponzio Photos
Clare Byrne and Amy Larimer of The Celestials.
The penultimate night of the year can be a tricky one, especially if it falls on a weekend. Do you go out and do something fun, or do you stay in and get cozy? On Saturday, Best Video offered the best of both worlds as two bands brought a down-home celebratory atmosphere to the Whitney Avenue performance space with friends, family, and fans gathered together to both hunker down and jazz it up as the year said its final goodbyes.
The first act was introduced by Best Video’s own Teo Hernandez as Michael Frost and The Tricky Bits. Frost stood up at the microphone alone with his guitar and CD player, letting the audience know that The Tricky Bits were “friends of mine and bits on microchips” that would join him at different points throughout the set.
“I love songs and I love making them up,” he noted with a smile. “You’ll hear obvious influences.”
The first song, “Green Park” — which he said might have influence from Peter Gabriel — had help from his friend Eric on trumpet as well as additional prerecorded background music. It got the audience warmed and welcomed.
Frost offered “To Be Mad For You Is To Live” next, calling it a “definite homage to Al Green.”
“My friends have heard it a lot but you haven’t,” he said to the crowd, who responded with laughter that may have been coming from some of those very friends.
The accompanying piano combined with Frost’s falsetto vocals to create a mixture of melancholy and soulfulness that had the crowd swaying and saying “yeah” in response.
“What if Jim Morrison had lived and become a smooth jazz kind of guy?” Frost asked the audience. His answer to that was the song “Sepulveda,” which found him joined by his aptly named friend Jim on sax. He said the song also paid homage to Joan Didion and Raymond Carver.
“L.A. fascinates me, just like England, even though I’ve never been,” he added, before performing the tune that indeed added a bit of a Lounge Lizard King vibe to the room. Frost added to that vibe with a cover of “Me and Bobby McGee” that saw his friend Trish join him on vocals.
“We’re going to try something drastic,” he said. “We’re gonna get real, y’all.” Their version of the classic was soft and supple, a real warm hug that garnered smiles from all.
Before that, Frost dug into a solo version of a Rolling Stones-influenced tune “from a time out of their more out of it, decadent era,” where he sang about a “cheesy boulevard, a wheezy sleazy boulevard” imbuing his voice with a bluesy, twangy, Jagger-ish swagger.
Jim came back for the final two songs, one called “Sally White,” after the owner of a former Westport CD shop dedicated to jazz, and another called “Boston Spring Song,” where Frost’s daughter Elaine joined on vocals for a warm and fuzzy end to the set — after which the room exploded with joyful appreciation.
Michael Frost and Trish of The Tricky Bits.
The joy continued into the next set with The Celestials, who describe themselves as a music collective from New York, Connecticut, and Vermont who sing “astral folk in a blues and gospel mixture of acoustic and electric instrumentation, spacious vocal harmonies, and incisive lyrics.” That description proved to be spot on as the band — on this night, Clare Byrne on vocals and guitar, Amy Larimer on vocals and percussion, Nicholas Leichter on vocals and piano, and Michale Frost on guitar and vocals — delivered an hour long set that felt simultaneously expansive and intimate with sweet two, three, and four part harmonies as well as solos that stirred the soul. The set also offered an opportunity to move the body as well as the spirit.
“You ready to swing a little?” Byrne asked, a couple of songs into the set. “I swear I’m going to get you up and moving,” she added, telling everyone that it was “okay to get up and move anytime” and even calling out certain members of the audience later in the set that she said she knew could dance. Byrne, Larimer, and Leichter themselves did some dancing in sync with one another during one of their numbers.
The band shared its newest song “Artemis,” who Byrne described as a goddess who was “kind and caring, but also would mess with you if you messed with her and who she loved.” The song, almost anthemic in nature, balanced strength and sensitivity.
Byrne mentioned that some songs were from an album called Celestials “that came before the band.” It included songs like “Cincinnati Lover” and “Who is Your Real Love?” that saw Leichter take over lead vocals. The spare instrumentation on the song — Leichter on piano and Frost on guitar — made it even more poignant.
“Surface,” the final song of the evening, was from another Celestial, Dan Strauss, who wasn’t with them on Saturday, Byrne said. The song began and ended with the same line: “You don’t have to worry. Everything will be just fine.” The song really felt like that final hug you get before you leave your friends, knowing that you will meet again.