If you were a Barack Obama fan or, heck, even if you were a John McCain fan who simply loves good independent music you could’ve done a lot worse than to find yourself on the Graham Terrace patio next to Morehead Planetarium on the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill Saturday morning.
To close out a two-week stretch of early voting in the state (the polls reopen on Tuesday morning for election-day voting), nine of the NC Triangle’s finest indie-leaning acts gathered on a beautifully sunny morning and we do mean morning: the first act went on at around 9 a.m., when the polls opened to help get out the vote, and just to share great music and good personal/political vibes.
That Billy Bragg, who was booked for a concert Saturday evening on the Duke campus, decided just a few days beforehand to drop by and deliver a handful of songs and some inspiring words was icing on the cake. What would have been a terrific local event was suddenly given an international perspective by one of the most articulate speakers in pop music for the past three decades.
While acknowledging that, as an Englishman, he has no vote in our elections, Bragg reminded how important the outcome of the American election is to the rest of the world, and thus how important it was for Americans to take their voting privileges seriously. He spent about as much time talking as he did playing songs during his approximately half-hour onstage, which seemed perfectly fine with the audience, given the wisdom Bragg tends to impart and the eloquence with which he delivers it.
Still, it’s the music that ultimately drives Bragg’s message home. While the closing, rousing “There Is Power In A Union” (from 1986’s Talking With The Taxman About Poetry) was a relatively obvious choice for such an event, probably more poignant and pointed was his more recent number “I Keep Faith” (from this year’s Mr. Love & Justice), which he prefaced by pledging his faith in the American voters to show the rest of the world what our nation can do.
Nothing, however, quite topped his spot-on cover-choice: Laura Nyro’s “Save The Country”, written in 1968 but resonating as timeless, four decades later. Narrative descriptions wouldn’t do the emotion justice, so just see and hear for yourself:
Those who didn’t get there bright and early (OK, I’ll confess) missed out on pre-10:30am-performances by Mac McCaughan’s Portastatic, Regina Hexaphone, and Hobex frontman Greg Humphreys. McCaughan also played near the end of the event as a duo with guitarist James Wilbur in what was billed as an acoustic Superchunk set, although McCaughan explained that drummer Jon Wurster was on tour with another band, and bassist Laura Ballance “doesn’t like it when we get all sensitive.” (Perhaps Ballance would’ve dug the performance by the dB’s, who closed out the afternoon by eschewing the acoustic format in favor of an all-electric four-piece that included guest bassist Mitch Easter sitting in with his longtime friends Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple.)
Other artists on the bill included Ivan Rosebud of the Rosebuds (playing a solo set), Raleigh indie-folk trio the Bowerbirds, and Chapel Hill up-and-comers I Was Totally Destroying It, who struck a real spark with the vocal harmonies between guitarist John Booker and keyboardist Rachel Hirsh. Whatever the acoustic approach may have missed from the band’s much more electrified debut album of last year was more than made up for by the increased focus on the band’s first-rate original songs, including “Today Don’t”:
Fortuitously drawing the lineup slot immediately preceding Bragg was Durham trio Megafaun, consisting of brothers Brad and Phil Cook plus drummer Joe Westerlund. Early impressions suggested this is a well-intentioned band that so far has more of a sound (freak-leaning indie-folk) than it has memorable songs. As their set progressed, though, their charm and charisma became harder and harder to deny or resist.
The clincher was their closing number, for which they abandoned the makeshift “stage” underneath the white canvas canopy and delivered their quasi-gospel rave-up “His Robe” (from their 2008 debut EP Bury The Square) on guitar, banjo and washboard while strolling amidst the crowd on the patio. The sun beamed brightly, the the music rang out, people voted, and for a few shining moments, all was right with the world:
