Concert recap: full band gig at East Koshkonong Lutheran Church in rural Wisconsin

Here are some photos of the lovely place where I played tonight. The church building was constructed in 1897. It's literally a few steps from cornfields, about a half hour outside of Madison, WI....a sort of unlikely place to play loud rock music, but even so, 205 people came to the concert!

And yes, we were loud! It was great fun...I got to perform as a little trio along with a couple of my musical friends:
JASON MORRIS played drums. We had performed together years before in the Chicago-version of the Beki Hemingway Band.
DAVID CASIMIR played bass. Dave and I first played together in the trombone section of sixth grade band, but our main collaboration has been in The Muckrakers.

Some of my favorite musical moments:
+ We opened with "Wide Awake" a song I wrote 20 years ago (yikes!), but I haven't played it for a while. I still like the song, after a couple decades.
+ We played a couple songs from my new Insomniaccomplishments album: "If You Have a Question" and "Dialysis Carpool." I got a little misty eyed when we played "Dialysis Carpool," a song about my Grandma Rundman. It's an unusual song, and it's brand new, so I've had a tricky time finding a way to introduce the idea to audiences, but tonight I felt like I set it up clearly.
+ We played my current favorite hymn, "How Small Our Span of Life" from the new cranberry ELW hymnal. Text by Herman G Stuempfle, and a beautiful English folk melody called KINGSFOLD.
+ We got an encore! So we played one of my all-time favorite songs "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones. It was a powerful moment for me to sing those words "If I don't get some shelter, yeah, I'm gonna fade away" in this beautiful sanctuary that has given shelter to those parishioners for over a century.

After the show Dawn and the kids and I got in the car and zipped down I-90 a few miles where we got to our hotel. Once we got Paavo and Svea in bed, I went across the street to the world's largest Culver's (seriously!) for a late dinner, and I sat there alone in blissful silence and read the newest issue of TapeOp. How's that for hopelessly geeky behavior.

Thanks to Dave and Jason for playing nice and loud with me, to Clint for hosting us, and to everyone for coming out in the midweek for an evening of nerdy Lutheran rock, hymns, and a great song by Mick and Keith.

Comments

The concert rocked, thanks for this post on it. It might be of interest to note that although our sanctuary is over 100 years old, our actual congregation is 164 years old, older than Wisconsin!

And what I want to know is, what did you decide do eat at the world's largest Culver's?

Popular Posts