Saw Mark Olson the other night...

[sonicshoulder]

Quaint little show at an old church turned multi-roomed venue here in Newport, Ky. Him and his wife with an opening by a local guy and fellow Creekdipper Dave Wolfenberger. Twelve dollar show, about 16 people there. Olson was walking around before the show sipping a tea, he pulled up a chair about 8 feet from the stage and watched his buddy open. Told stories, shot from the hip, sounded fantastic and gave everyone in attendance reason to believe he's legally insane. Absolutely fantastic evening. I really like his solo stuff so I enjoyed it immensely, he did play a couple Jayhawks songs begrudgingly because "he is contractually obligated and some people come out to hear them". Half of the Jayhawks, in a room the size of my living room, for $12.....pretty cool.

[Fritz]

That is pretty cool. I'd love him to come down here to Australia but if he's only getting sixteen people to a show in the U.S., well...I don't like the chances.

[remphish1]

Quaint little show at an old church turned multi-roomed venue here in Newport, Ky. Him and his wife with an opening by a local guy and fellow Creekdipper Dave Wolfenberger. Twelve dollar show, about 16 people there. Olson was walking around before the show sipping a tea, he pulled up a chair about 8 feet from the stage and watched his buddy open. Told stories, shot from the hip, sounded fantastic and gave everyone in attendance reason to believe he's legally insane. Absolutely fantastic evening. I really like his solo stuff so I enjoyed it immensely, he did play a couple Jayhawks songs begrudgingly because "he is contractually obligated and some people come out to hear them". Half of the Jayhawks, in a room the size of my living room, for $12.....pretty cool.

cool..coldasgasoline and I were having a Mark Olson discussion in the live tonight thread. I saw the concerts in the Studio show in NJ I got to spend about 15 minutes talking with Mark in someones living room. The show takes place at a house with a potluck dinner. He is an odd but passionate guy. He was talking in depth about his trip to Armenia, spending time on an oil rig in Norway...(His significant others father works for Conoco Phillips), His suburu, and Health Care...the show was interesting too. Glad you had fun!

[Cold as Gasoline]

Yeah, I'm one of those people who was coming out to hear the old Jayhawks songs  I had just heard Gary Louris less than a week before at Fitzgerald's and that show had a much bigger, more engaged crowd, with Jayhawk Karen Grotberg and a near-complete song-for-song rendition of the "Sound of Lies" album in the plus column.  The Mark Olson show at Schuba's in Chicago also had less than 20 and it was awkwardly small for the room, with a couple of other "oh, this is awkward" moments.  I'm all about the Jayhawks and find them to be lovely human beings as well as exceptional songwriters and musicians.  Prefer Gary Louris live by a long shot.