Last Saturday night, I was standing in the cold, cold rain at the end of a long, stagnant line in a heavy cloud of crowd-made second hand smoke, waiting to see a kid I never heard of play his guitar. Fun, huh? But I couldn’t bag it-I was just too curious.
The doors to Alumni Hall opened. While I wondered where my curiosity was leading me- either to a musical treat or just the opportunity to nap in public- I only knew one thing for certain: there was no turning back now. I crossed the threshold of the doorway.
And so began my night with Howie Day.
I honestly figured the crowd was going to consist of me and Howie’s mom. But either I was wrong, or Howie just has an obscene number of cousins. The crowd topped off at 1100 or so, many from Fairfield, but many not (I was even asked at one point, “So is this a state school or what?”).
The lights dimmed. Out on stage strolled the opening act,Tim Warren and Eric Donnelly of The Alternate Routes. This was my first time hearing them live, and I don’t think I’ll forget it.
The sincerity in Tim Warren’s voice is incredible, as is Eric Donnelly’s masterful playing. Together, they looked like it wouldn’t matter if they were performing for the bedroom walls, they get so much joy out of music-a charming and refreshing attitude. The crowd apparently agreed with me, judging from the rousing cheers and thunderous applause the boys received. One guy in the crowd near me kept bellowing “Howie, you rule!” after every song. Okay, so he had no idea who he was watching- but his statement was right on the money.
They finished playing after forty minutes or so, and then came the twenty-five minute wait for Howie himself. Whether they were busy trying to pry Howie out of the corner of the men’s room having taken the fetal position in an “Oh, Lordy! I’m not Dave Matthews?!?” attack, or if they were trying to deflate his head so he could come down from the diva rafters and land on stage, the natives got a little restless. Cutting down that time in future concerts would be better.
But finally, the lights dimmed again, and there was Howie. It was go time: would this pale kid with hair like a muppet satisfy the nagging curiosity? Well, in short, he turned my wonder into goosebumps.
His dark, heavy unplugged rock sound, combined with his gravelly voice, pulls you in like every song is a juicy secret. The further he played into opening number, “Sorry, So Sorry”, the crowd grew silent, mesmerized by his aching guitar and longing voice.
What caught my attention particularly was toward the end of the song, when I noticed that echo effects started in the music seemingly from nowhere, and he was moving his legs like he was trying to dance. I stood up to get a better look at his feet and realized he wasn’t dancing at all.
Spread closely around him on the floor was a system of pedals-a loop sampling system allowing him to dub and multitrack his own voice, his guitar, and even simulate percussion by slapping the guitar body.
What followed after the opening number was a concert that was more of a unique experience of sound than merely a dude with a guitar. Almost all his songs came from his Epic Records debut album “Australia”, but he made each song into its own improv experiment.
He’d start playing and push pedals with his feet and turn every song into layers of rich three and four part harmonies, with endlessly overlapping chord schemes and surging beats. Conjuring these sound mountains from nothing, he would then add effects like echo and distortion, as well as acting as his own DJ mixing and remixing, speeding and slowing the sounds.
My personal favorite part of the show was about halfway through, when he sampled himself singing his own song, then looped that, and, while keeping his song going, sang Toto’s “Africa” counterpoint to it. He did something similar later using U2’s “One”-again, all while keeping other background and percussion samples going, which he always recorded and reformatted for every new song.
About a half hour later, the show ended after a riveting encore perfomance that sealed the amazing deal of the night. When the lights came up, it was a truly rude awakening-I was shocked how closely he had drawn me into his unique world.
I don’t think any words or any CD can capture the special experience Howie Day shared with us that night. The best I can do is encourage you to go check him out in concert the next time he’s around, because a night with Day is a rare treat indeed.
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