Febuary 2 2008: Adam Sweeney, Sarah Levecque Band - the Basement, Northampton MA

Everyone likes free shows at the Basement, especially when it's people you're friends with plus people you've never heard of before and blow you away.

Sarah Levecque and her band played first, and it was pretty much like it must have been for people when they would see Lucinda Williams play small places like this. Amazing. She played mostly acoustic guitar and sang, and the rest of the band just played standard country. But her vocal phrasing and melodies were both just about perfect. She switched over to an electric guitar for a few of the later tunes, but the acoustic tunes were the best.

And Adam played next. He had those two dudes that I don't really know on double bass and fiddle, and Ben on drums. Ben got dragged to the show by John, who I guess told him that he could either spend the evening playing that board game Risk or come out to the show. So Ben barely makes it out of the house, and then he's got half a beer in him when Adam says, "Hey Ben! Wanna sit in?" And Ben figures he's got his cymbals in the car anyway, and free beer never hurts, so what the hell.

And it was a good show, expecially considering that no one on stage had played with the others in at least six months. "Albuquerque" sounded real nice, like it always does, and the Pureka's "Porch Songs" was a great way to end the set.