I promise this will be the last post in which I pimp out the wonderful, beautiful sounds that belong to Lalagray. Just kidding. I will make no such promises. Last.fm reported the fact that I listened to her at least ninety times at work last week. It’s true, I had her album on repeat and I have a feeling a lot of you will, too.
Saturday night started out late as I rushed to make it to LaGrange in time for dinner. Their kitchen switches to tacos-only at 10PM but luckily, I made it there with fifteen minutes to spare. Being my first time there, I was nervous that I arrived so close to tacos-only time that I would get a frown at my order of BLT sliders. Quite the contrary, as my order was received and delivered with a smile. As I scarfed down as many sweet potato fries I could manage, the cook looked at me with a questionable thumbs up. I gave him two. No doubt, I’m going back for more one day.
Sam Anderson started out the night with a bit of soulful blues which was met with mixed reactions. @nffcnnr noticed, “Wow. Dallas peeps: not down w/ Sam Anderson. He’s representin’ southern soul, Ft Worth style, y’all need to recognize!” while ButIJustLikeMusic.com reviewer simply stated, “See also: Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights lite.” Either way, I’ve had “Susie Q” stuck in my head for days, dangit.
Austin-based David Ramirez was such a treat aside from the chatty neighbors that decided to stand in front of me. No joke, this guy took one look at me and decided to stand in front of me along with his crew of gabbing gals. LaGrange was full but every other tall person made a note to stand to the side or behind me. Such is the life of a 5′ tall girl.
But back to David Ramirez whose soft howls and stripped down set made me a fan. I’m listening to his tunes off his Myspace page as I type which don’t have the same effect as a man, a guitar and mic, and his words of broken hearts and memories on a stage. Toward the end of his set, I finally gave up the table I was leaning against for a quieter spot, front and center, while David performed “Fires”. Luckily, ButIJustLikeMusic.com caught this beautiful solo on video so you can dig. Kudos to David for giving props to Deep Ellum’s rise from the ashes and playing through the crowd.
As soon as David’s set ended, a gang of musicians jumped on stage, dwarfing the space allotted. It was a fun game, playing “Guess which bands that musician is in!” including the talented violinists Becki Howard (The Crash That Took Me, Sarah Jaffe) and Petra Kelly (Spooky Folk, Fox and the Bird), and multi-instrumentalists Dan Bowman (Fox and the Bird, Dallas Family Band) and Daniel Hall (Fox and the Bird, The Beaten Sea). It wasn’t the originally planned lineup but the group provided the support to bring the album to life.
Which, finally, leads to the star of the evening, Lalagray. As soon as she energetically counted off with “Bag of Bones”, I was fully engaged with her set until the end. I wasn’t the only one as she stopped only twice to joke about her lack of monologues and to tell her simple story: Five years ago, a college dropout in pursuit of creating music, whose dad supplied the Roland and whose mom supplied the Franzia. Her family was supporting her at the show as well, as I witnessed a teary-eyed mother during “Devil’s Nest”, faithfully recording the entire show.
DC9 at Night (@DC9atNight) used the hash tag #SarahJaffeBetterWatchHerBack last week while linking to their preview of this show, and I might have to agree with that. Lalagray’s repertoire brings a mixed bag of fun, upbeat songs such as “Heartachin’” and “Big Brown Box” as well as soft, slow-dancin’ tunes like “In the Stars” and “Will Anybody Love Me” that should appeal to a larger audience than Jaffe’s Suburban Nature. And although she said it was her first time to perform with this lineup and through some of her songs, Lalagray handled the entire set with grace and maturity that brings such great hope that this album release show was only the beginning of something so much more.
The show came to an end with her “bringing down the house” with “Moved by Strings” which included some slick tickling of the ivories then “Hard Parts”, which left no face without a smile. As with all good shows, it ended all too soon but thanks to Junius Recording Co., you can pick up a copy of her debut album and keep the smiles alive. See you at her next show, folks.
(Lalagray / website / tumblr / myspace / twitter / facebook)
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It’s not just people who are 5′ that they do that to. Impolite concert goers really anger me.
It was the weirdest thing since he kept looking back at me but didn’t move for the longest time. I suppose I could have said something but the Chatty Cathys were also a distraction when his back wasn’t. Glad to know I’m not alone in the unspoken concert-goer etiquette.