I love my little city of Hallowell, ME. It’s tiny, and yes, sometimes I wish it were closer to Boston or even Portland (and that it wasn’t quite so cold and icy). But it’s got excellent restaurants, a generous community, lots of green space, and a thriving local art and music scene. Which meant that on Monday my husband and I could head down the street to Slates to have an excellent dinner (oh my goodness, the homemade vanilla ice cream and hot fudge sauce!) and see one of the best live music performances I’ve experienced.

The performers were Peter Mulvey and the band Po’ Girl, touring together this season. The music itself was fabulous- ranging from folksy to bluesy to jazzy.

Here’s one of my favorites from the night, by Peter Mulvey, called “Kids in the Square”:

And here’s one from Po’Girl that I loved: “Maudite guerre” (I think I pretty much love any piece of music with an accordian or concertina in it…)

And here are links to some other Po’Girl songs, because I can’t resist: “Gandy Dancer” (such great energy!) and “Old Mountain Line” (to demonstrate their fantastic range).

So anyway, fantastic music, lovely setting… but the thing that really made the performance something special was the sense of joy in music the performers shared. It was pretty clear that they were having a blast playing together, making jokes, bouncing musical inspiration around and creating something bigger than the sum of its parts, right there in stage (so to speak — it was really more of a clearing at one end of the dining room).

In some ways it reminded me of how listening to the commentary on certain movies/television shows makes me love those stories even more, because I see how much joy went into the making of them.

It also makes me wonder how that affects other creative endeavors… does knowing that a certain book gave its author particular joy (or pain) in writing it change my reading of the book? I’m not sure I can even judge that, but it is something I’ll be thinking about…

What about you guys? Does learning what went into creating a particular piece of art/music/entertainment affect your experience of it?

And have you heard any great live music lately?

Tags: music