Most memorable Vermont concerts of 2023 include Noah Kahan, Big Thief, Myra Flynn
The live-music scene is still finding its footing following the COVID-19 pandemic and all the havoc it caused with public gatherings. Many concerts were hugely successful; Taylor Swift seems to have done pretty well for herself, for instance. Closer to home, a big chunk of the Concerts on the Green staged this summer at the Shelburne Museum by Higher Ground sold out.
Still, there were signs that not all is hunky-dory in the concert world. Smaller shows still sport spotty attendance in many cases. Perhaps most notably from a local perspective, the Burlington area’s two top music festivals, Waking Windows and the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, unfolded this spring on more modest scales than usual.
When it comes to concerts, though, it’s not so much about quantity as it’s about quality. These 10 shows this particular music fan caught stood out as among the most memorable live-music events of 2023.
Big Thief
Jan. 31, Higher Ground, South Burlington
This band that veers seamlessly from folk to pop to full-out rock started out on an easy-going track at this long-sold-out show in Higher Ground’s Ballroom. About a third of the way through, vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Adrianne Lenker and the band caught on fire, with an intense version of the musically upbeat “Masterpiece” leading into a dark, heavy, ultra-powerful take on “Not.” A cozy night suddenly exploded, and the packed crowd was all the better off for it.
Caroline Rose
April 4, Higher Ground, South Burlington
The last time the former Burlington resident played Vermont was less than a week before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down in March 2020, scuttling Rose’s huge U.S. tour just as it was getting started. This first of two nights at Higher Ground felt like a bit of redemption. Rose channeled the frustration and depression she dealt with the past three years into a new album, “The Art of Forgetting,” and played those most-personal of her songs with a melancholy, artistic gusto.
Blowtorch
May 5, Waking Windows festival, The Monkey House, Winooski
The veteran Burlington band delivered on this night what it’s produced off and on for decades – white-hot punk rock driven by killer chords – with an energy dictated by today’s chaotic times. Vocalist Clark Russell leads the charge, carried by the man he called the “Czar of guitar,” Bill Mullins, Vermont’s omnipresent, inscrutable and amazingly versatile axe man.
Underground System
May 6, Waking Windows festival, Rotary Park, Winooski
The top set of music by an act without Vermont ties at this year’s truncated Waking Windows festival might have been this one by the Brooklyn ensemble that sets a blazing fire with its funky, urban-fueled dance-rock. Sly and the Family Stone has a worthy successor in this foursome led by Domenica Fossati, whose dynamism on the rotary stage produced more power than the rushing Winooski River falls a couple hundred yards away.
Burlington Electronic Department showcase
May 25, Radio Bean/Light Club Lamp Shop, Burlington
The Burlington electronic-music act Roost.World presented this multi-performer event in both rooms at Radio Bean, and the creativity erupted like a volcano from the darkest depths of the sea. Rock duo Beautiful Natural and electronic wizard Casper wowed crowds in the Light Club Lamp Shop, Dutch Experts held the crowd rapt at Radio Bean and DJ/producer Urian Hackney (part of a triumphant year for the member of Rough Francis who would appear on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and play drums with Iggy Pop) filled all the literal and figurative spaces in between. This was the best of what Radio Bean – and Burlington itself – can be: a place where adventurous music is nurtured from the ground up.
Dee Dee Bridgewater and the Memphis Soulphony
June 9, Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, Waterfront Park
This set preceded a strong headlining concert at Waterfront Park by Zambian musician Sampa the Great. Bridgewater’s performance, though, wowed with its intensity and the Tony Award-winner’s immense stage personality that ranged flawlessly from buoyant to reverent to bawdy. And hearing Bridgewater’s powerful voice render the songs of Al Green and Carla Thomas so beautifully wasn’t so bad, either.
Myra Flynn
June 11, Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, the Flynn
She’s a Vermont native, but the singer-songwriter has traveled the world the past decade and a half, living in New York, Australia and now splitting her time between Vermont and Los Angeles. Flynn helped close the festival with a triumphant hometown show at the like-named performing-arts venue celebrating her new five-song EP, “Shadow Work,” with musical friends including Mike Gordon of Phish and local saxophone wizards Dave Grippo and Joe Moore joining her on stage for the touching and thrilling party. Sage Horsey’s mind-bogglingly-athletic dance number with the second set’s opening tune “Didn’t I” may have been the singularly most-beautiful Vermont concert moment of 2023.
Noah Kahan
July 29, Waterfront Park, Burlington
This was the Strafford native’s most significant show ever in his home state, and it almost didn’t happen. The 26-year-old folk-rocker had to cancel his planned set one day earlier at the Newport Folk Festival due to issues with his vocal cords, and then heavy rain and possible thunderstorms threatened his long-sold-out headlining gig at 4,500-capacity Waterfront Park. The rains vanished and his voice returned just enough to reward his ever-growing legion of fans with high-powered live versions of tracks from his breakthrough album, “Stick Season,” inspired by and peppered with imagery of the rural region of Vermont he grew up in. He followed that up for another sell-out crowd one night later with a show that was just as powerful, and that revealed Kahan (a recent Grammy nominee as Best New Artist) to be just as appreciative of how Vermont pushed him toward pop-music stardom.
Gogol Bordello
Aug. 2, Higher Ground, South Burlington
A Gogol Bordello show is always super-energetic, but this sold-out performance was among their most-frenetic Vermont concerts. Maybe the troubles in Ukraine have fueled leader Eugene Hutz even more than his usual high-octane persona would indicate. (He’s been vocal about the Russian invasion of his native land, which his family fled for Burlington following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.) It certainly felt like he was channeling his anger over war into the good of his band’s creativity. Even with that undercurrent of global tension, the night still bore that same sense of cathartic celebration that’s ever-present in a Gogol Bordello show.
DIIV
Nov. 2, Higher Ground, South Burlington
This New York band plays high-energy, intense, super-tight indie guitar music of the sort that can send fans drifting off into a rapture of rock chords. DIVV doesn’t put out a lot of records – their long-awaited fourth album in their 12-year existence is due out, well, who knows when – but when they play shows with this kind of kinetic power, new music can wait just a little while longer.
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Memorable VT concerts of 2023: Noah Kahan, Big Thief, Gogol Bordello
