Dainon Moody

The Portland Cello Project brought two sets of holiday cheer to Salt Lake last weekend for an evening at The State Room on Dec. 14, 2024, and we were better off for their visit.

The touring group was a pared-down version of their usual cast of characters, featuring four incredible cellists instead of the usual revolving number of 7-14. In this case, less was more. Nobody minded a bit. It helped allow for a more intimate evening than usual. All was calm and intermittently bright.

And while a heavy sprinkling of the festive numbers was all but expected, there were continual surprises. It’s hard to think of many other Christmas-themed concerts casually dropping their own arrangement of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” into the mix, following it up immediately with Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” The latter got some of the night’s biggest reactions (in the form of both hoots and hollerin’), probably because you don’t get to see cellists headbang, well, ever.

“Shalom Chaverim” (from the group’s Winter album) was a lovely turn, offering their take on a song children might sing during a Hanukkah celebration. There were arrangements inspired by Looney Tunes (a race through William Tell’s Overture), Charlie Brown (“Linus and Lucy” will never get old), and even their very renaissance-founding take on Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal.” Special personal highlight? A romp through Soundgarden’s “Fell On Black Days.”

The unexpected worked wholly to their advantage, and perhaps that’s a learned tactic resulting from a lot of live experience. The intrigue factor was high for what should have seemed a standard performance of four incredible musicians. It meant a standing-room-only crowd collectively held its breath and wondered what might come next. If the universe is kind, it’ll send them back with the entire crew for one of their Radiohead tributes. Dare to dream, baby.

Have you ever done that weird thing where you wondered what a band might have sounded like if certain core members in it had never met? Sort of a Sliding Doors type scenario? Sure, it’s an unusual thought to land on a few songs into a Shovels & Rope concert, as I did last night Thursday night (Dec. 12, 2024) at The Commonwealth Room. And there’s even a chance the band would have ceased to exist entirely should one or the other have chosen to go right instead of left.

Granted, that’s a lot of conjecture, maybes and what-ifs. But when you hear how easily the voices of husband and wife duo Shovels & Rope (Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst) sound together as each buoys the other up, it sounds like they’ve always belonged together, wrapped around one another, two halves of a whole.

It hasn’t been so long since they visited us, but they hauled their duets and joy back here Thursday. And while comparisons are mostly lazy shortcuts, they build on that loose Jack and Meg White Stripes geetar-and-drums sound by giving it more muscle, melody and even better storytelling—smashing the blueprint and improving the model. And here’s a way to keep your audience wide-eyed: play musical chairs throughout, taking turns drumming and guitaring and pianoing, doing each impossibly well, even further proof of their effortless talent.

Photography by Natalie Simpson

We were treated to highs and lows throughout the night. When the band sang of our fair state early on (“C’mon, Utah!”), it was the good vibe we all yearned for, and they prefaced the tune by saying it never sounded better anywhere else. There was a sad turn, too, when Trent shared that it was the anniversary of his father’s passing, and he gave us an emotional tribute of a number in his memory.
The one-song encore helped put a final bookend on the night, and they brought out opener Al Oleander to put her best Roy Orbison foot forward with her take on “Blue Bayou.” It was maybe the first time in the evening that Shovels & Rope seemed to take a breather, opting to support instead of clambering toward the spotlight. Classy touch, that one. Besides, they’d more than earned the chance to take a rest.

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What needs saying first: when you witness the Lower Lights, you experience more than a band. The group opened their three-night stand on Dec. 11, 2024, at Kingsbury Hall on the University of Utah campus. There are two more shows on Dec. 13 and 14. 

Sure, these 16-17 rotating musicians have shared their lauded Christmas shows with this valley and its growing fan base for at least 15 years, and that’s plenty of time to experiment, sand rough edges, and make the good better. But understand these are also friends who’ve written music before (and during) that period. They’ve played on one another’s albums, dreamed up their own, and had tours with their names in real or proverbial lights.

However, when they join arms as this entity, the results are wholly different. Maybe that’s a given. They create moments of magic they’d not be able to make on their own, at least not entirely.  

Sharing nearly two-and-a-half hours with the Lower Lights means tapping into one of the greatest collections of Christmas and gospel music that’s likely ever been pieced together. And it’s hardly a rehash of tired carols. Nothing pedestrian is allowed in this space. 

Instead, you hear what friendship and deep care and empathy sound like when swirled together. A version of “Silver Bells” may not come out exactly as planned, and those who feel their way through it will tell jokes about what did and didn’t happen, but it’s hard to mind that much as a member of the audience. Perfection wasn’t promised, and it was hardly sought. In its place, you receive warmth. The roaring campfire you didn’t know you needed showed up at the right time.

And when that happens, you’re allowed to shake your head in disbelief and maybe chuckle at how great these Lights are when the spotlight is shown on all instead of one. 

The Lower Lights isn’t a “nice to have” for Salt Lake City. It feels necessary. When Dominic Moore and Paul Jacobson duet on Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” for example, it helps soften a divisive feeling still lingering on an election year. Also needed: Kiki Jane Sieger’s soulful turn on “Pretty Paper,” a sultry take on “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)” and banjos and mandolins and three-part harmonies sweet enough to scare out surprise tears.

This feels like a spoiler alert, but it’s not. All of this happened, and those who gathered were grateful. Once invited by Sarah Sample to dance along, we stood and participated immediately. We danced along in balconies and aisles (with and without kids in arms), and even in place when that notion struck. The thing was, it struck often. With a massive stage as filled as it was with talent, we wanted to join. We wanted to react. Joy begets joy, after all.  
The great part about reading these strung-together thoughts (and hopefully on Thursday, when they’re still fresh out of the gate), is that the Lower Lights are set to join forces twice more, on Friday and Saturday. This puts me in a precarious and incredible position. Should these words have any sway, please know buying any available ticket to either show will be a heralded decision on your part, an early Dec. 25 gift you get to give yourself.

• Who: The Lower Lights Christmas Concerts
• When: 7 p.m. Dec. 13 and 14, 2024
• Where: Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah Campus
• Tickets and info: utahpresents.com

• Read more: Our Interview with Lower Lights’ Sarah Sample
• Read more: Our interview with Lower Lights’ Paul Jacobson

The Lower Lights are coming. If you’re brand new to the Beehive State, you’re forgiven for not knowing about the huge local band conglomerate that’s steadily grown into a holiday tradition around these parts. You have no excuse if you’ve been here a while. The Lower Lights have been singing and dancing and carol rearranging for the masses for about 15 years now. It’s reached a point where they can’t do it all in one night (with three shows available, you may choose your own adventure). They will sling the holiday magic Dec. 11, 13 and 14, 2024 at Kingsbury Hall.

We caught up with Sarah Sample at her home in Wyoming this week, where she lives in a small cowboy town near the Bighorn Mountains, a space with a lot of wild edges to it. “Drive 10 miles in any direction and you’re still on a dirt road,” she says. While she loves where she’s planted roots with her family, coming back to Salt Lake for this string of shows is never a burden.

It’s a chance for her to reconnect with her musician family and those related by blood, as her mom and sisters still live in the area. 

“Whether it’s 50 or 200 people, I think a smaller crowd size is something most of us were used to,” she says. “To have the demand of a Christmas concert grow to the point where we’re playing multiple nights to 2000+ people at Kingsbury Hall is the coolest. It’s a joy I do not take for granted.”

Doing these shows for as long as she has with some friends she’s known for over 20 years has created a palpable sense of comfort. There’s no jockeying, no hogging the spotlight. In the early years, it was a process of trying to find where you fit in the band of 18-20 musicians on any given night. But everyone has settled into their spaces, and beautifully so.

“I’ve learned my role,” she says. “I love to dance and be in my body. That’s bringing something to the show only I can bring, because I will be the crazy mom who is going to dance, whether my teenager wants me to or not.”

Sometimes it even spawns impulsive copycats, as she once spotted a father and his young daughter in the back of the theater, dancing along to the band’s three-part vocal harmony version of “White Christmas.” That’s a reaction she lives for and hopes to see more of.

But the performances do come with a lot of layers. They are more than singing and dancing. 

“One part of the Lower Lights I really love is the consistency of relationships through change,” she says, reflecting. 

“You know, we all have aged and changed, and our lives and religious standings are different. We’ve had children, we’ve been married, we’ve been divorced, and still, it’s a collective of musicians who care about one another, who show up and basically say, ‘Come as you are. We would love to have you as part of this group.’ And what I hope is that people in the audience feel that same invitation, to come as they are. Whether they’re heartbroken or really excited for the season, we will take them as they come and hope they feel something when they’re at our shows, that they’re welcome to be there regardless of what their lives look like.”

“Hopefully that makes people more comfortable. Our concerts are not perfect. It’s not like we never miss a note … it just doesn’t matter if we do. You’ll still have a great show.”

You heard it here first. Some promises, you can’t help but 100% believe in.

• Who: The Lower Lights
• Where: Kingsbury Hall
• When: December 11, 13-14, 2024
• Tickets and Info: The Lower Lights

Read more: Christmas Music Revival: The Lower Lights

Provided you aren’t hitting all three nights of The Lower Lights in the next 7-8 days, here are a couple of shows we’ll gladly add to your radar. It’s not often we get a couple of bands this good this late in the year, so chances are we’re already applauding for that alone.

• Thursday
• Who: Shovels & Rope
• Where: The Commonwealth Room, Dec. 12, 2024, doors at 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m. 

Why: On the heels of the band’s latest (September’s full-length Something Is Working Up Above My Head), the husband and wife duo of Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst return to these parts to give us a lot of incredible harmonies laced with a lot of drums, an thundering and steady beat. And, sure, they were here just last year supporting Gregory Alan Isakov, but it’ll be good to see them for a lot longer, showing off all their newly created songs. Is it too much to wish they end up performing their excellent take on “In My Room,” (the one they did along with Sharon Van Etten, on Busted Jukebox, Vol. 3). It’s okay to start manifesting that reality, yeah? In any case, if you’ve never seen them live, know this: even if you don’t know their music well enough to sing-shout along to, just know you’ll really, really want to. And that’s never a bad way to feel, period.  Tickets and info: Tickets

• Saturday
• Who: Portland Cello Project
• Where: The State Room, Dec. 14, 2024, Doors @ 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m.

Why: It’s less important to know who is in this band hailing from you-know-where than it is to view them for what they are and the uniqueness that they bring. To paraphrase their own site real loosely, they create music you’d not expect to hear on multiple cellos in places you’d rarely expect to see them performed. And it means, yes, you’ll hear them take on the likes of (spoiler alert) Elliott Smith and Radiohead and Fleet Foxes and Outkast. And considering they’ve recorded their share of holiday tunes, expect one or more of those. Carols may show up. While I can attest to seeing 14 accordions played live at once, I’ve yet to experience what at least 9-12 traveling cellists sound like tackling “Paranoid Android” together. A real gift, indeed. Tickets and info: Tickets

It’s hard for me to be even the slightest bit objective about a band like Blind Pilot. Maybe that comes from seeing them a lot over the years and being too familiar with their staggeringly great output. Maybe it’s because hearing them blend vocals and play banjo so well live makes it feel like being wrapped up in my warmest blanket. As far as experiences go, let’s face it: the vibe they create could hardly get any cozier. Anyone there last night could attest to that truth.

And maybe we all expected them to sound as incredible as they did Sunday night at The Commonwealth Room anyway. It’s as if they never suffered a single misstep or played one wrong note from start to finish. But after being absent from these parts for so long (and probably many others) and now in the thick of promoting their first new album in nearly a decade, Sunday night’s sold-out performance felt like a welcome-back celebration.

When the five-piece played “The Story I Heard” (and you know that one even if you think you don’t; it’s the song with the line about Jojo jumping a Utah train), it’s tough to imagine it getting a better reaction anywhere else thus far on their tour. A state mention goes far in these parts. Include us in a song, and we will remember it. We’ll even prove that by singing along with you so loud that we won’t need to borrow any of your microphones.

On a night that felt right in many ways, the band still managed to surprise, too. When Dave Jorgenson magically appeared in the back of the venue during “Things I Cannot Recall,” blowing dutifully on his trumpet at all the times he should have, it felt like a bit of magic got shuffled in along with the price of admission. Besides, horns need not be confined to the stage. That alone was an added reason for joy on a night allowing for plenty of that stuff.

Read our interview with Blind Pilot here.

If Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes were to have suddenly started his own cult in the midst of showing off how well he can still sing and gyrate at the Eccles in Salt Lake City last night, chances are good we’d have followed whatever path he’d led us down.

If there’s one thing those touring as the self-proclaimed Happiness Bastards (after their 2024 album of the same name) wanted us to believe in, it was the joy accompanying good music.

But instead of being invited into their new religion, we were willingly baptized in a lot of the familiar and a sprinkling of the new. Far from being labeled a nostalgia act, The Black Crowes, who initially formed in 1984, appears to be experiencing a career second wind. It’s a good spot to be in.

In a set that lasted 18 songs strong, Chris, brother Rich Robinson, and the rest of their eight-member band set their own proverbial fire Tuesday, helping prove that age needn’t much exist in the land of straight-up rock and roll. While naysayers say the genre is fast fading, it’d be hard to prove that to anyone who took in last night’s performance.

Owning up to a voice that sounds every bit as whiskey-soaked and decades aged as it ever did, Chris sounded as comfortably at home and extra incredible on favorites like “Twice as Hard,” “Sometimes Salvation,” and “Sting Me” as he and the rest of his band ever have. (Side note: Those background singers really helped tie it all together.) The newer songs match the ones that have come before, too. This bodes well.

By the time the one-song encore was presented in all its glory—a speedy run-through of Ellmore James’ “Shake Your Moneymaker” that had everyone on their feet and dancing on both balconies and throughout aisles—a final truth seemed more than obvious: the band better already be planning their return. A mostly filled Eccles theater of believers is probably already demanding it.  

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Chris and Rich Robinson have plenty of reasons to celebrate. They’ve stopped all their fighting and got the band back together. They put out a new album this year—their 10th!—something they’d not done in 15 years. And when their plans to open for Aerosmith got quashed when Steven Tyler hurt his vocal cords and the band abruptly hung it up, The Black Crowes simply extended their own tour and added more dates, moving forward as the Happiness Bastards they are.

There are lessons in resilience and growth mixed in with all that, and fans reap the rewards of the Brothers Robinson getting along and moving on.

If recent setlists indicate what’s in store, Salt Lake City’s in for a real treat next Tuesday, November 19, when their tour lands at Eccles Theatre. The Crowes seem all too eager to please their adoring fans, blending old and new favorites into recent shows, one eye looking back as the other looks forward. In an era where pop appears poised to dominate all other forms of music combined, Chris and Rich and the rest of the band will have a long chance to remind us that, when done right, rock ’n’ roll isn’t going anywhere.

I’ve never seen the full band perform, but I’ve always wanted to. I have seen the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, and it was incredible for many reasons, but more of a resounding echo of earlier greatness. A lot of years ago, when the Crowes’ debut came out — Shake Your Money Maker (1990) — it quickly became one of the most well-loved cassettes in my collection. My best friend and I drove around in his old brown 1978 Pontiac Parisienne and turned his stereo volume up as loud as it’d go, screaming our way through songs like “Hard to Handle,” “Twice as Hard” and “Jealous Again.” It was the soundtrack of unabashed joy.

Years ago, the Crowes felt poised to be as big and important to music history as The Rolling Stones. Or perhaps those high hopes were entirely my own, I don’t know. It never quite worked out that way, and that’s entirely OK. The band found its voice, made its mark, and survived the hiccups that nearly ended them for good.

That’s certainly something worth crowing about.

• Who: The Black Crowes
• Where: The George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Theater
• When: Tuesday, November 19, 2024Tickets and Info: live-at-the-eccles.com

Touring without your band in tow must be like performing without a safety net. There’s no mind-bending 15-minute-long Nels Cline solos to stand aside and marvel at. No soft backing vocals from John Stirratt to combine with.

But if Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy was nervous about standing alone on a large stage with only a mic and several acoustic guitars to keep him company, he hid it well for 20 songs and 90 minutes straight on Wednesday night at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. This was a rare chance for him to hold a magnifying glass up to the songs he has written, pass it over to the audience and let them examine what they probably sounded like in their earliest stages.

You could hear the careful poetry comprising well-loved Wilco hits as well as Tweedy’s growing solo catalog. For the real diehards, he even threw in a couple of favorites from his lesser-known outfits, including one each from Uncle Tupelo (“New Madrid”) and Golden Smog (“Please Tell My Brother”). For a genuinely good time, go find “Lou Reed Was My Babysitter,” a song he wrote about how badly he missed live music mid-pandemic. It’s worth your three minutes, promise.

If there’d been a campfire nearby, it’d have felt apropos. There were invitations to sing along. There were well-timed anecdotes. But, best of all, Jeff was the ultimate gift, along with the ambiance he brings. He was relaxed, comfortable, and—for my money—the best he’s ever sounded live. If he’s not perfected his craft yet, he is dangerously close.

And it’s completely OK if you don’t get Jeff Tweedy. Some just don’t (and they love to share that for some reason). No matter. It’s comforting that many in Utah get it and have for a while now. They did him the kindness of buying every available ticket. Hat tip to the rabid fans.

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One of many reasons Jeff Tweedy’s Salt Lake City show is nearly sold out: his reputation precedes him.

The Wilco frontman has a lot of songs he can play. The books he’s written prove he has stories to tell. And he’s hilarious. You get the feeling that, no matter what he attaches himself to lately, he’s enjoying himself. He’ll be flying solo on Wednesday, Oct 23, 2024, at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. And while we can expect that this performance will be a far quieter affair than we’re used to when Wilco visits, that is perfectly OK. 

There will be strumming in place of meandering solos. Musical poetry subbing for rock anthems. Idle musing stage banter. Listening. Appreciating. Vibing.   

Because, hell yes, Jeff Tweedy has earned the right to do whatever he wants. Who else has a band that has earned its audience without ever landing a radio hit? Who else was dropped by his label after recording a record, then brought back by a smaller label within that label, before leaving to start his own? Who else has his own on-again, off-again music festival, handpicking his favorite acts?

If it’s not obvious by now, I don’t just like Wilco. I love Wilco. I love each member of the band like a weird estranged family member I’ll never get rid of. The only lyrics I’ve ever wanted to tattoo on my body come from one of their songs. As further bona fides, I once flew to the Catskills and slept in a forest, just so I could see them play a couple of gigs in the mud and rain. Will I ever tire of all Jeff and/or his band does? Clearly. No.

Once a serendipitous string of events led me backstage after a Wilco show at Red Rocks in Denver. As we walked around with wide eyes and pretended like we belonged (when we so didn’t) we noticed the whole band was milling around. The whole band, that is, except for Jeff.

Wednesday night’s show will be the exact opposite experience … and it’ll be glorious.

• Who: Jeff Tweedy (sans-Wilco)
• Where: Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center
• When: Wednesday, October 23, 2024
• Tickets and info: thestateroompresents.com