Just half a year (or a lifetime) ago, live music stopped, the world all but halted, and we started collectively telling ourselves lies about the return of normal. And that last bit’s okay, I think, as a need for hope is sometimes stronger than the impulse for honesty.
It’s why we spend so much time believing.
In the wild and unfolding interim, new normals abound, some of them better than others. And so, all of a sudden (it seems), a rash of shows are happening at fairgrounds, outdoors and surrounded by people inside and next to cars. Drive-in concerts, a new kind of experience that could carry the revelations of live music back to us, could cradle us in that passing joy that makes life worth living.
And so, we found ourselves, on a Wednesday night, driving together into Frederick, MD – not exactly a recent hotbed of live music – and settling into spray-painted parking spaces on a lawn facing a covered stage and a massive screen. We loaded into the gold zone, gifted a decent but imperfect view of the stage, and awaited the show. Folks mostly wore masks when expected (outside of our parking spots and adjacent spaces), and the folks working the venue largely handled everything that needed handling.
As the sun painted the sky orange, Baltimore icon Cris Jacobs came onstage, just him, a kilowatt smile, a couple guitars, and his soulful voice. He greeted the audience, introduced himself, and put on a clinic. He played several fan favorites, including a well-timed “Buffalo Girl” that made the night shine even brighter. Another of my favorites was “Hallelujah Hustler” as well a beautiful rendition of “We’ll Act Like Strangers.”. It’s almost impossible to talk about Cris’s show without spending time on his playing: the way he handles that cigar box guitar, slips between riveting solos and heartrending verses, is rarely paralleled by anyone else in the scene.
It’s worth adding and emphasizing that the sound and lights surprised me. Everything resonated with quality and clarity, no matter where you found yourself in the field, and the big screen allowed everyone in the audience to see the stage even when we couldn’t. Massive kudos to the Soundstage and All Good folks for ensuring quality, which according to quite a few friends around the country, has not been an assurance with drive-in shows. I can confidently say that this one more than met any reasonable criteria for quality, and the sound compared favorably to the best outdoor festival sets I’ve caught in the past (here’s looking at’cha, DelFest and Solid Sound).
After Cris came Grace Potter, also solo on the night, with just two guitars and a wurlitzer. She treated the audience right to a wurlitzer rendition of “Paris” to start the night, but the organ broke (temporarily, it turned out) in the middle of the song, so she switched to the Gibson flying V to finish it. In a playful mood, she bantered all night with the audience, taking requests and responding to shouts, joking periodically while flashing a high-beam smile throughout every moment.
While she talked about the weather – “This is tropical. I did not order this weather, but I will take it” – her husband, Eric Valentine, took out his soldering gun and fixed Grace’s wurlitzer, wearing a headlamp and bringing it back to the stage after a few songs. “This is how I fell in love with this man,” and she kissed him before sliding into the song she co-wrote with Valentine, “Love is Love.”
Highlights abounded – joking about her “Captain Morgan situation” at the organ because she’d lost its bench and legs during a covid transition. Or calling her “mullet haircut” a “covid outburst” while laughing. Or announcing in the middle of an extended, jazzy solo in a song, “no wonder I broke this fucking keyboard” and “Good soldering job you did there,”, eliciting Valentine to say “I’ll fix it again”, to which Grace playfully retorted, “I’m intentionally trying to break the keyboard again so I can watch him solder it.”
But of course, the songs and Grace’s powerhouse voice took center stage, with “Apologies—>Treat Me Right” a riveting pairing, and an absolutely explosive “Medicine” leading into a singalong, and the set-closing combo of relatively new song “Eachother” and “Stars” being especially memorable moments.
It bears repeating that live music is a kind of medicine, and it’s a stroke of wonderful fortune that these two songwriters delivered perfect sets full of light and beauty. I absolutely and wholeheartedly encourage you to catch an upcoming show on the schedule if your wallet and life permits it.
Enjoy these photos from Grace Potter and Cris Jacob’s live performances at the Fairground in Frederick, MD on October 21, 20202. Photos by Matt Ruppert and Shantel Mitchell Breen.
Cris Jacobs
Photos by Matt Ruppert
Photos by Shantel Mitchell Breen
Grace Potter
Photos by Shantel Mitchell Breen
Photos by Matt Ruppert
Check out more drive-in shows at the fairgrounds in Frederick, MD by visiting Baltimore Soundstage, here! The Front Bottoms are up next – this Wednesday, October 28th!
