John Nelson

On July 28, 2022, the Grammy Award-winning Punch Brothers (not actually brothers, but they do pack a punch) will bring their American Acoustic tour (also featuring Watchhouse and Sara Jaroz) to the Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre. The all-star line-up features some of the best voices in Americana. 

Punch Brothers take bluegrass to its next evolutionary level drawing inspiration from the brain and the heart. In 2018, they won a Grammy Award for Best Folk Album with All Ashore. They’ve spent more than a decade changing the face of acoustic music, stretching the limitations of their instruments, and influencing a generation of young musicians. 

Joining Punch Brothers is Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange) an experimental folk-rock duo composed of multi-instrumentalist Andrew Marlin and fiddler Emily Frantz whose beautifully blended duet harmonies have made them fan favorites from the Ryman to Red Rocks.

Sarah Jarosz is a four-time Grammy Award winning multi-instrumentalist with a captivating voice and richly detailed songwriting. Jarosz’ bluegrass version of Prince’s “When Doves Cry ” has her rocking the mandolin (yeah it’s possible) while accompanied by only a stand-up bass. This re-imagined and stripped down version is transformative. 

The Punch Brothers American Acoustic tour will be this summer’s must-see roots music jam-on-the mountain. Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre is an ideal setting for listening to a triad of first-class Americana artists showcase their mastery of American vernacular music.

• Who: Punch Brothers and Watchhouse featuring Sarah Jarosz
• What: American Acoustic tour
• Where: Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre
• When: July 28, 2022
• Tickets and info: redbuttegarden.org

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On July 6, 2022 Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre felt like a concert hall, despite the low back chairs and blankets on the lawn. The crowd welcomed opener John Craigie with rapt attention, not the usual chatty picnic atmosphere that often greets the opening act. Craigie captivated the near-capacity crowd with self-effacing humor and quirky, relevant storytelling. Channeling the late great John Prine, who we lost during the pandemic, Craigie delivered seven well-crafted songs like “Let’s Talk This Over, When We’re Sober (and not in Quarantine)” and “I Am California.” He ended his set with “I Wrote Mr. Tambourine Man.” The goal of any opener is to focus the crowd’s attention as they find their way to their seats. Craigie did that and more. His unassuming wit and charm earned him a garden of new fans in the process.  

Perfect weather and a full crowd of adoring fans greeted Mary Chapin Carpenter and her band as she launched into “Farther Along and Further In.” Carpenter, a five-time Grammy Award winner, crafted a long setlist with emotionally intelligent country music, sometimes boisterous and fun and other times introspective and socially-conscious. Her music is a great blend of smart and sassy. She definitely delivered both. 

Carpenter masterfully converted the amphitheatre space into a dance hall with her hits “Passionate Kisses,” “I Feel Lucky” and “Shut Up and Kiss Me” then brought it back to a natural listening room for her more introspective songs like “Stones in the Road,” “Halley Came to Jackson” and “The Hard Way.”  

For her encore she played her country hits “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” and “Down at the Twist and Shout.” For a midweek show, the crowd never thinned. She enraptured us with her 17-song performance with a mix of upbeat country and beautifully crafted country/folk ballads.

Carpenter shared words of wisdom from southern writer Eudora Welty that continue to inspire her: “All serious daring starts from within.”  Indeed, Carpenter’s innovative songwriting personifies “daring” by blending a country beat with introspective and articulate folk lyrics. Isolated during the pandemic, she live-streamed a YouTube series, “Songs from Home” singing into her phone taped to a picture frame in her kitchen. She also recorded a “live” album One Lonely Night from an empty concert venue at the legendary Wolf Trap’s Filene Center near her home in Virginia.  

Carpenter and her talented band brought that daring blend of “Americana” to the Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre stage for us to enjoy in a majestic setting. Shout out to the Red Butte Garden sound crew who did a fabulous job, as always.

On June 28 two British stars of the 1980s rolled into town to help us forget our troubles for a few hours.

The Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre stage looked a bit unusual, at first. Where was the drum kit? What happened to the usual slew of guitars? In their place were seven synth/keyboard stations and only a few guitars. I half expected a DJ to come on stage. The configuration looked more like a techno dance club. But there we were, sitting outside on the lawn in low back chairs. I wondered if this style of music was too indoorsy for an open-air festival. I was pleasantly surprised!

Midge Ure, best known as the lead vocalist for the British new wave band Ultravox, kicked things off with “Dear God.” A solo keyboardist worked the electronics while Ure jammed on his electric guitar. Ure’s a skilled performer who toured as lead guitarist for Thin Lizzy in the late ’70s.  

Ure shared a fun fact with the audience—his most streamed song on Spotify isn’t even one of his own. Then he belted out David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World.” Ure covered the song in the early ’80s and his version is still popular today. In addition to those two songs I already mentioned,“Vienna” and “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes” brought back memories of my misspent youth living in the UK. 

Like me, the crowd at the sold-out show was predominantly older and eager to hear music that conjured up memories of yesteryear. I know I was ready to embrace nostalgia and forget about our current tragic state of affairs for a while. Howard Jones delivered. The crowd rose to their feet when he opened with “Pearl in the Shell,” a 1984 chart topper in the UK. Jones offered a nice balance of music from his forty-year career including new offerings from his forthcoming album Dialogue.

Jones peppered his set list with songs from his arsenal of classic hits and kept the crowd on their feet. He belted out a soulful rendition of “No One Is to Blame” and the crowd sang right along with him. “Like to Get to Know You Well” and “What Is Love” prompted the crowd to hold up their illuminated phones in unison reminiscent of Bic lighters back in the day. The night turned into cathartic karaoke therapy as the crowd joined the chorus. The outdoor space felt like an arena, except with much better sight lines and acoustics.

Jones added a fun surprise when he announced that his bass player Nick Beggs had penned the 80’s mega-hit “Too Shy” with the band Kajagoogoo, but due to legal reasons they couldn’t play it. Then Beggs gave Jones permission to cover his song and he launched into the 39 year-old chart topper. Most of the 3,000 attendees knew the catchy chorus word for word.

Midge Ure joined Jones on stage for a nice rendition of “Feed the World/Do They Know it’s Christmas,” a charity song co-written by Ure in 1984 to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. It was originally recorded by Band-Aid (a supergroup of predominantly British and Irish musicians). The famine relief effort led to the Live Aid concerts of 1985.

Jones ended the show with “Hide and Seek,” a song he performed at the televised Live Aid concert in London. He pointed out the song’s lyric: “Hope you find it in everything” should read: “Hope: you find it in everything.” That may be a great mantra for the next generation. 

• Who: Howard Jones with special guest Midge Ure
• What: 1980s synth-pop 
• Where: Red Butte Garden Amphitheater
• When: June 28, 2022

On July 6, 2022 iconic folk and country artist Mary Chapin Carpenter hits the Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre stage with special guest John Craigie. Carpenter is a five-time Grammy Award winner who has sold more than 15 million albums. She is the only female artist to win four consecutive Grammys for Best Female Country Vocal Performer (1992-95).

Despite her recognition as a country singer, Carpenter has never been the type of artist who confines herself to any one genre. There’s not enough glue to make any label stick. She refers to herself simply as a singer/songwriter and once described herself as a “slash-rocker” (meaning country/folk/rock). While country music fans know her best for her string of hits such as “Down at the Twist and Shout,” “I Feel Lucky” and “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” she also created a mega-crossover hit with Lucinda Williams’ “Passionate Kisses” which reached the top 20 in both country and adult contemporary charts in 1993. All told, Carpenter has recorded 21 songs that reached the Top 40 and in 2012 she was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. 

Carpenter, a Jersey girl, has never fit the country music mold of big hair and twang. Sure, her great storytelling and rockabilly earned her commercial success as a country artist, but early folk influences remain palpable. Her most recent albums highlight her introspective and socially conscious storytelling, rooted deeply in the folk tradition. 

John Craigie is the well-paired opener for the evening. Craigie is an accomplished singer-songwriter and storyteller who pens witty and often irreverent tunes. Great songcraft will be on full display in the heart of summer in Salt Lake City. I can’t wait! 

Great lyric alert:

“Everything runs right on time, years of practice and design/ Spit and polish till it shines/ He thinks he’ll keep her/ Everything is so benign, safest place you’ll ever find/ God forbid you change your mind/ He thinks he’ll keep her.” —Mary Chapin Carpenter

“When the apocalypse is over, I hope you like your job/ Ain’t it a shame nobody sets anybody free anymore.” —John Craigie

• Who: Mary Chapin Carpenter with John Craigie
• What: Grammy Award winning artist and storyteller
• Where: Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre
• When: July 6, 2022
• Tickets and info: redbuttegarden.org

You won’t need a time-traveling DeLorean to find your way back to the 1980s when synth-pop pioneer Howard Jones takes the Red Butte Garden stage on June 28, 2022. The show promises to be an epic 1980s dance party.

Jones is an early master of the electro-synthesized sound that became synonymous with the Second British Invasion of the US in the 1980s thanks in part to the rise of MTV in America. Jones had a dizzying 15 top 40 hits between 1983 and 1992 with mega-hits like “No One Is to Blame” (1986), “What Is Love” (1983), “Like to Get to Know You Well” (1984), “Things Can Only Get Better” (1985) and a host of other synth and drum machine laden diddies that are sure to get you up and dancing. 

Jones is touring in support of a new record Dialogue set to drop in July. The sneak-peak single “Who You Really Want to Be” is new material without sacrificing the classic synthesized sound. Advanced technology gives a crisp freshness to Jones’s electronic music while retaining the rhythm that could still be featured in a reissued Miami Vice episode. Familiar yet fresh. The new music will undoubtedly compliment the classic hits Jones is sure to add to the setlist.

Joining Jones on the tour is Midge Ure, the lead vocalist of Ultravox, a new wave band who scored 17 Top 40 hits in the UK from 1980-1986. Having lived in England for a good part of the 1980s, Midge Ure and Ultravox were frequent performers on Top of The Pops, a weekly British TV show that featured the UK chart-toppers of the day. Ultravox never really broke into the U.S. charts, but fans of British New Wave of the era know them very well. 

Fun fact for trivia fans: Howard Jones and Ultravox both performed at Live Aid on July 13, 1985, and Ure even co-organized the event. Live Aid, for those too young to remember, was a mammoth televised benefit concert held at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. It featured a who’s who of artists of the day. Excerpts of the performances, including a legendary Queen performance, can still be found on most streaming services.

Big hair, large glasses, shoulder pads, and voodoo economics are best kept deeply buried in the past, but the music of the 80s lives on as legions of fans discover or rediscover the new wave dance pop that defined Generation X.

• Who: Howard Jones
• What: 1980’s Synth-Pop (Rooster-on-acid hairdo not required)
• Where: Red Butte Garden Amphitheater
• When: June 28, 2022
• Tickets: redbuttegarden.org

Get ready for the jazzy sounds of summer. She & Him bring their limited-run Melt Away Tour–A Tribute to Brian Wilson to Red Butte Garden on June 14, 2022. She & Him is an indie-pop duo featuring TV’s New Girl Zooey Deschanel (She) and singer-songwriter M. Ward (Him). 

She & Him’s 2022 summer tour is in support of their upcoming album Melt Away: A Tribute to Brian Wilson, set for release on July 22. Red Butte Gardens’ audience will be among the first to hear the duo’s reimagined interpretation of the music of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. She & Him didn’t take the easy road by covering “best of” hits. Instead, they scoured Brian Wilson’s massive 60-plus year catalog and carefully chose 14 songs to stamp with their own cool jazz indie-pop style that She & Him fans know and love. 

“Darlin’” is the first single off the new record and they filmed a whimsical, campy video to go along with it. “Darlin’” is a fairly deep cut. The song did break the top 20 for the Beach Boys in 1967 but isn’t exactly a signature Beach Boys hit. They cover “Wouldn’t it be Nice” from Pet Sounds (1966), but the rest of the 14 tracks are lesser known Beach Boys or Brian Wilson solo offerings. Wilson even puts his stamp of approval on the album by joining the duo on “Do it Again.”

Deschanel’s voice has a range and quality that fits well in a jazz cabaret or a smokey blues club (it will also sound great in the natural acoustics of Red Butte Garden.) The Beach Boys’ sound and Wilson’s writing style have always been synonymous with summer, sun and sand, but with an unmistakable jazz feel often lost in the good-vibration tempo and falsetto male vocals. She & Him strips that away to expose the jazz roots. I’m looking forward to hearing how She & Him deconstruct the sound and make it something fresh and new.

On June 14, Red Butte Garden will host an early solstice party with She & Him crooning out some sizzlin’ summer Beach Boys sounds with their own breezy indie pop style. They’re sure to add some of their great original music to the evening’s setlist.

Who: She & Him
What: Indie-pop duo covering classics and original compositions
Where: Red Butte Garden Amphitheater
When: June 14, 2022

For tickets, visit Red Butte Garden’s website. Discover the latest in culture and arts around the city and the state. And while you’re here, subscribe and get six issues of Salt Lake magazine, your guide to the best of life in Utah.

The Icelandic rock band KALEO (spelled with all caps) kicked off the Red Butte Garden Outdoor Concert Season on May 18, 2022 with Nashville-based rocker Bones Owens opening the festivities.

Bones Owens provided the thunder and KALEO brought the lightning and burned the house down. Owens started off with “Keep it Close,” a southern-fried hard driving rock number that set the stage for a perfect night on the mountain. Owens poured through five additional razor-sharp numbers bringing the crowd to their feet. Fans who love propulsive southern rock will want to keep Bones Owens on their radar. 

KALEO took the stage and gave us all a history lesson on American roots music. They artfully blended blues, rock, folk, gospel and even a hint of late ’70s disco into a fresh new sound. They showed us that American roots music is eclectic, progressive and influenced by many contributions—even four artists from Iceland.

They opened with their new single “Break My Baby” and rolled into their signature sound with “Broken Bones.” KALEO is a relatively new band, hitting our shores in 2016 with a fantastic debut album A/B. In 2021 they released their sophomore album Surface Sounds. With only two full-length albums under their belt, you’d think their arsenal of music would be as thin as our mountain air, but both albums are loaded with great songs that make KALEO feel like a more seasoned band.

The Icelandic quartet was accompanied by two backup vocalists (Jessica Jolia and April Rucker) who gave the already soulful blues sound a dynamic gospel feel. “Hot Blood” had the crowd rising to their feet like a tent show revival. KALEO then took us on a magical mystery tour through the 1970s with “Gringo.” Frontman JJ Juliusson pulled a falsetto out of his vocal quiver for this one, reminiscent of the Rolling Stones circa 1978 (think “Miss You”).

KALEO moved with fluidity back to their signature sound, a dark brooding soulfulness with “Brother Run Fast” and “Way Down We Go.”  These two incredible songs are a must for any Sunday morning playlist that’ll give you all the spirituality you’ll need without leaving the house.

The 3,000 or so lucky fans who were able to attend this sold-out show got a bounty of great American roots music. No wonder KALEO was hand-picked in 2019 to open stadium dates for the Rolling Stones. To see them headline on the Red Butte stage was a memorable evening and an incredible way to kick off the Red Butte Outdoor Concert Series.

Springtime in the Rockies is akin to Gump’s box of chocolates, but on Wednesday night we got an amazingly warm spring evening. Mother nature and the Red Butte sound crew ensured that we enjoyed pitch-perfect sound from both artists. Kudos!

• Who: KALEO
• What: An Icelandic blues/rock band (yes, there is one and they’re awesome)
• Where: Red Butte Garden Amphitheater
• When: May 18, 2022