Pyramid Scheme (New Chris Thile Project, Living Room)

(photo by Beana; more here)

 “Welcome to the East Village... or is this the Lower East Side?  I should know this.  I’ve lived here for three months... but I’ve only stayed ten nights.”

It was the LES, and that was new New Yorker Chris Thile (pr. THEE-lee), the mandolinist for SoCal bluegrass upstarts Nickel Creek.  If he can ever get on his duff and stop touring with his day band, he might produce one of the most exciting residencies this town has seen in some time.

Thile brought his yet-unnamed new project – which includes Chris Eldridge on guitar, Gabe Witcher on fiddle, Noam Pikelny on banjo, and Greg Garrison on upright bass, consummate musicians all – to a packed Living Room last night.  He formed the group to work on a new multi-movemented work in prog-‘grass, and they’ve been rehearsing for almost... seven whole days.  “This is the one-week anniversary of the band,” Thile said while offering up potential names.  “The Bahnd, “with an ‘h’.”  “Lefty & the Showboats.   Really, if anyone has any good suggestions...”

For a new collection of folk-folks, they display remarkable rapport... but Thile is used to doing a lot in a short amount of time.  The twenty-four-year-old has been part of the Grammy-nominated crossover sensation Creek, recorded four solo albums, partnered on a CD with Mike Marshall, and even starred in a video tutorial for aspiring mandolin players.

The quintet gathered in a tight semi-circle on stage, members weaving towards-and-from a single belt-high mic as if they were warming themselves on each others’ fretwork.  And they did generate heat:  Fingers flew at a blistering pace and landed with a ridiculous amount of precision, and the players seemed as in awe of each other as the audience was.  Thile glowed and grinned and bounced; with bushy sideburns and bedhead curls, he looked a bit like Roger Rees’ Fred Holywell in the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol.  He actually whooped with incredulity in the middle of one of Eldridge’s solos.

Musicianship aside, a lot of the fun of the performance came from the obvious joy these young men got from playing together.  They laughed, genuinely, at each others’ jokes.  When Pikelny introduced a “rodeo-friendly” one-upsmanship number called “Manchicken” as the “musical equivalent of Amway” the group blew back from each other in hysterics; when the complicated piece came together as perfectly as a pair of clasped hands the smiles were still there.

To the untrained ear – like, say, mine – a lot of bluegrass music can start sounding the same after a while.  But the guys kept it from feeling like A Very NPR Evening by mixing in a wide variety of covers;  an intimate take on Wilco’s “Poor Places” and a slow-burn jazzing of Radiohead’s “Morning Bell” took their places beside more traditional stuff like Bill Monroe’s “Molly and Tenbrooks” and Jimmy Martin’s “Don’t Give Your Heart to a Rambler.”  While Thile sang most of the lead vocals – a second, underamplified mic hovered over the first – both Aldrich and Witchner took their turns.  Harmonies – as exact and rich as the instrumentation – brought Witchner and Garrison leaning in.

Here’s hoping they never resort to individual amplification.  That central mic set-up focuses the unit.  It really does act as a hearth.

As for the musical number that initially gathered these folks together?  Only the first movement of the proposed suite was played, something called “The Blind Bleeding the Blind” – and during it band’s demeanor became much more serious.  It made the show feel much more than a lark... and provided promise of performances-to-come.  Rather than let the work peter out, the group segued into the song (“Lonesome Road,” possibly...) Thile said had inspired the piece.  The mandolinist said they’d be back in the same space to work out the rest.

Welcome to New York, Mr. Thile.  It’s going to be awful good having you here.

*

But he’s going to need a bigger room.  The maximum occupancy was listed as 189, and it was full-to-bursting.

Originally announced on the Nickel Creek tour and myspace pages as a simple Chris Thile solo show (he performed a solo set in the same venue some months back), tickets flew off Ticketweb; the Living Room site foolishly promised that tickets would be on sale day-of-show.

A line started forming as soon as the bar opened at 6pm; when I called, a dissuasive bartender noted that the “handful” of tickets would be made available at 8:30 for the 9 o’clock performance.  Ticket-holders and stand-by folk amassed in a single line that filled the front room; by the time those with tickets had been admitted, a line still stretched up towards the bar’s second floor. 

Those of us who did get in had to stand back by the main room’s bar, under an eaves that muffled some of the sound, and shift around whenever the waitress wanted to get through.  It got even more packed when Andy Garcia dragged his date up into the aisle for the encore, comfortably situating himself right in front of a pair of shorter people who had waited a good while to get in. 

Absolutely worth the trouble.  The show was short, but phenomenal.

Nickel Creek is in Arizona tonight; the next gap in their schedule comes mid-December.  Keep an eye on the previously mentioned sites, plus the Nickel Creek Forum and Ticketweb.

There was also some talk in the line last night that Thile – when not on the road – stops in at The Baggot Inn for their Wednesday night bluegrass jams.

*

2beanornot2bean was there, and has pics.  Thanks to the posters in the Nickel Creek Forum for the line-up info.

tags: chris thile  nickel creek  living room  

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