NEC Concord has quickly established itself as a legit music venue in the heart of downtown, and it’s looking to build on that in 2017.
As part of the Listening Room Series, Granite State of Mind is back for another year starting Saturday, and there will be a different feel to it this year.
Last year, the first year of the live, in-person iteration of the show (which also exists on WNHN radio), was all about getting to learn about the music writing process. Local artists would play their original songs, and host Rob Azevedo would moderate a question-and-answer session with members of the audience in which they would ask the artists questions about how they wrote the songs.
This year, it will be all about tributes.
“We just decided to mix it up,” Azevedo said, referring to himself and Jeff Weber, cultural arts director at NEC Concord. “We did six months of that sit-down-with-the-artist stuff, and we just wanted to keep things fresh.”
That means each installment of GSM will feature songs by one particular big-time artist, performed by several local musicians.
“You can learn a lot about these artists by who their influences are,” Azevedo said.
This idea was a very popular one.
“We put the idea out there on Facebook and, honestly, within an hour, I was booked for six months,” Azevedo said.
The idea is that local musicians will play well-known songs, but put their own spin on them to make it a unique experience. Then, at the end of the show, everybody who performed will take the stage together and play a few songs as a group.
“Say somebody’s doing ‘Ripple’ by the Grateful Dead,” Azevedo said. “They could come in playing it on a ukulele or a mandolin or a slide guitar or maybe just a keyboard.”
All Granite State of Mind shows will be held on Saturday evenings at 5:30, and they will all be free.
The first GSM of 2017, this Saturday, will be a Grateful Dead tribute night, featuring Erik Ray, Will Hatch, Beef Stu, Complete Unknowns and Don Bartenstein.
The season schedule is already out, so we might as well give you the whole lineup so you can plan your next six months around it:
Feb. 18 – Neil Young tribute
March 25 – Classic Female Country Stars tribute
April 22 – The Beatles tribute
May 13 – Bruce Springsteen tribute
June 17 – Bob Dylan tribute
Talk about some heavy hitters, huh? Make sure you check this series out.
