October 29 2006: Tracy Grammer, Adam Sweeney – Iron Horse, Northampton MA

Adam opened for one of his favorite folk players and got me in for free! Can’t beat that.

Adam played really well, and it was kind of a pleasure to see him at the Iron Horse. Because now his musical career has reached its high water mark: he has played on a stage that the Mountain Goats have also played. Hard to get any bigger than that.

And Tracy Grammer played really well too, with Jim Henry playing REALLY well on guitar. Quite the contrast from last night: the Gandalf Murphy guy wanked his way though pretty much every song. Jim Henry played three times as well and about a million times as tastefully. “Crocodile Man” sounded better than it does on the record, pretty much entirely due to the guitar playing. I was impressed.

And Tracy closed their set by having Adam come back up and play banjo to a cover our (mine and Adam’s and Sairi’s, amongst other people’s) old English prof Bill Jolliff’s “Laughlin Boy.” It was great. Jim took some great mandolin solos, Adam took a banjo solo (really fuckin nicely, I might add), there was three-part harmony, etc. Great times.

Also, I have determined that the Iron Horse french fries are amazing. Perhaps my second favorite french fries of all time, falling short only to the fries at Produce Row in Portland. And that’s saying something.