David Wilcox scores big in show for Indy Acoustic Cafe Series

Until last Saturday, it had been almost 10 months since I'd attended a concert in the long-running Indy Acoustic Cafe Series. I'd missed all the shows in the fall portion of the current season, and because series coordinator Mark Butterfield was bringing back David Wilcox this month -- Wilcox's first visit to the series in three years -- I decided to try and make it.

Wilcox delivered a great show to a sellout audience at the Wheeler Arts Community in Fountain Square, offering a mix of fun, quirky and serious tunes that had the audience warming to him increasingly with each song. It helped that he set up many of the songs with back stories, and many of the anecdotes were laced with life-experience humor.

He introduced one of those songs -- a serious reflection on fatherhood based on his relationship with his own father -- with a humorous story involving his then-very-young son Nate (now a college student) and the boy's fascination with a toy light saber. Wilcox animated Nate's motions, using his forearm to slice the air, delighting the crowd (see second and third pictures below).

In one of his promotional emails before the show, Butterfield had said this would be Wilcox's last visit to the series. He didn't explain how he knew that, or if Wilcox had told him he wouldn't be back, but after Saturday's show, I don't see how Wilcox could avoid Indy in the future unless he simply stops doing tours.

A full gallery of pictures from the show can be found at my SmugMug site.

Indy Acoustic Cafe Series: Jonathan Edwards hits a home run

Jonathan Edwards delivered a rousing finish to the current season of the Indy Acoustic Cafe Series Saturday, with a show that had spectators smiling, swooning, in awe and hootin' and hollerin' at all the right moments.

The show, at the Wheeler Arts Community in the Fountain Square cultural district of Indianapolis, was the seventh of the season that began last November and included -- with a few double bills -- performances by 12 artists, if you include Shawn Mullins' sidekick Patrick Blanchard and Craig Fuller's son Patrick. Also appearing this season were James House, Griffin House, Vance Gilbert, Callaghan, Catie Curtis, Jessi Curtis and Ellis Paul. Neither of the Houses nor Curtises is related, by the way.
 
Like many artists who appear in the series and who travel the country and globe performing before intimate audiences, Jonathan Edwards flirted with significant fame at least once in his career -- his 1971 single "Sunshine" was a Top 40 Billboard hit -- before settling down to a busy, less commerce-driven lifestyle. The sense of humility and appreciation of people's enjoyment of the craft exhibited Saturday has been a hallmark of almost all the performers I've seen at the Wheeler in the long-running series.

Edwards' show Saturday was packed with self-deprecation, storytelling, a brief explanation for why he was performing barefoot (he joked that his shoes were confiscated by airport security); a sharp wit and playful interaction with the audience; and a spine-tingling bluesy-ballad cover of the Beatles' "She Loves You" that snuck up on just about everyone in the audience, including me, and had folks hootin' (including me) with excitement at song's conclusion.

He also performed a charming, rhythmic, bayou-like romp, "Don't Crawfish Me" (a song he said a person he met in a bar offered to him); his ballad  "Sometimes" that a front-row spectator had requested ... and then transmitted live (with Edwards' blessing) via cellphone to the spectator's wife, Marsha, who was not at the show; and that wonderfully uplifting "Sunshine," which he gave an interesting syncopation makeover for the Series crowd in attendance.

After Edwards' final number of the regular set, I witnessed something I'd not seen at a Series show before: an immediate -- and unanimous -- standing ovation with more hoots and hollers. Would he come back to offer a clearly appreciative and satisfied audience an encore, and could it possibly top everything else he'd already done this night? Yes ... and yes. Edwards sung, a cappella, a stirring, spine-tingling (there's that phrase again) environment-awareness song that he dedicated to the recent observance of Earth Week.

Bottom line, the show became my new favorite of the dozen or so performances I've seen now in the series. The next season of the Series will open Oct. 13 and feature a return visit from John Gorka.

And now, here are some pictures from Saturday's Jonathan Edwards show. As always, click on the images to see larger versions. The final three images below are from the compelling a cappella encore.

To see a full gallery of images from the show, visit the Jonathan Edwards gallery in the Indy Acoustic Cafe Series area of my online site.