Chris Thile (The Punch Brothers & Nickel Creek) - (MySpace Site)
I actually didn’t plan on seeing or even writing about Lower East side resident Chris Thile, who is best known as the mandolin virtuoso of the genre bending acoustic group Nickel Creek. However, when I walked into the Tribeca Music Lounge, they were running a bit behind (as per ussu) and I heard an amazing fiddle sound and smooth, freakishly studio-sounding voice…. it was Chris. Moving his body in a small tranquil wave, the way John Mayer’s face does, but not as bothersome, Chris finds himself deep inside of each sound he belts out. During one of my favorite songs “It’ll Happen” he feels each big pluck of an otherwise small mandolin. I’m thinking to myself, this song should be all over Adult Contemporary radio, if I was anyone at Star 98.7 in Los Angeles, I should already have this in rotation. Alas, they dont. He ended his set with, what I will claim right now, as the best White Stripes cover ever of “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” (rightclick+save as). A bit faster, a bit more in need of a xanex but, a bit more possible of being on my Top 25 most played list on my iPod.
A little bit of Jason Mraz without the geek factor, a little bit of Dave Mathews without the sheik factor, Chris is his own artist in an otherwise “I own this artist” world.
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