CAMBRIDGE, MA - March 3--Ryanhood didn’t make it easy for some people… Evening co-headliner Owen Plant and I—oddly enough—were faced with converse sides of the same dilemma; I couldn’t gain access into the Club Passim and neither could many of Owen’s fans, for the same reason. Because of the deluge of Ryanhood fans, the venue was dangerously already over-capacity by the time I arrived, and considering the remaining unclaimed reservations the management had officially deemed the set “sold out.” The best I could do was have my name placed fourth on the waiting list and hope for a drastic change of fortune or stroke of luck. Neither occurred. The first two people on the waiting list did manage to attain some kind of conditional admission to the club, with no guarantee that they would be able to keep their seats for the entire performance. Resorting as I often do in these precarious situations to shameless passive antagonism, yours truly pulled the last vestiges of his dwindling press credentials—which in this case were no more than my health insurance card issued through the group plan of a major, national media company. It worked. I was allowed access, but only upon the conditions that I not go beyond the soundboard area in the rear of the club (thereby occupying no available seats), and that I not engage in the use of flash photography.
At least that’s the version I’d like you to believe. In truth, I think that my engaging in taking pictures through the window behind the ticket counter, along with my declaration of intent to take the remaining photos I desired from the opposite side of the club windows—from the alleyway outside the club on a bitterly freezing windy night—sealed the deal to get me in the performance area. Club Passim personnel swiftly concluded that I looked like someone suitably loony to do just that. And I make no apologies and have no regrets. I absolutely HAD to get myself inside that club to see Ryanhood. Desperate times call for desperate measures!
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I had some inexplicable intuition that this would be a monumental show, and I wasn’t going to miss it. Musically it was just yet another superb, synergetic performance from this extraordinarily talented duo. It also turned out to be, by way of a formal announcement, the last show in the Boston area that Ryanhood would call a “hometown” event. The audience was informed that after being based in Boston for two years (six years for Ryan Green) Ryanhood are relocating back to their true place of origin, Tucson, Arizona. It makes sense. Their families are there, and they have been traversing the contiguous continental U.S. states to such an extent that being based in Boston is neither a necessity nor an essential facility. Still, this was a bittersweet evening for us all.
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This evening Ryanhood shared the spotlight with popular performer singer/guitarist songwriter Owen Plant. The three shared the same stage for the set’s final segment.
The exclusive Ryanhood portion began with “Stopless,” followed by a surpise of sorts; i.e. a new and different Ryanhood medley—“Happiness“ segueing into “Army.” It worked beautifully! Other songs included “Gardens and the Graves,” “The Middle/Such Great Heights” (the medley fans are very familiar with), “Sad and Happiness,” “Back Into Blue,” “Nothing But The Real Thing,” and then… some extemporaneous surprises that only a live Ryanhood performance can produce. When Ryanhood entertained requests from the audience, they were deluged with a cacophony of myriad song titles. “Ivy” seemed to be in the preponderance, with everything else in between, including “Theme From The Prince of Bel Air” (an old Ryanhood cover staple). Injecting comedic wit, Owen Plant (standing next to me in the soundboard corner) yelled out “Stairway To Heaven.” Cameron Hood retorted “jerk!” much to the audience’s amusement, at which point Ryan and Cameron proceeded to launch into a flawless version of Led Zeppelin’s classic tune. They were covering it perfectly, and threatened to do the entire song in its full length! They didn’t follow through on that threat, and instead opted for a fantastic take on “Ivy.”
I explained to Owen (who was standing next to me throughout the set) that this was no aberration whatsoever for Ryanhood. On two occasions I have witnessed their truly amazing mastery of covering other people’s material. One instance was at one of their sets at Ian Copeland’s Backstage Café in Beverly Hills. People in the audience were requesting songs rather out of musical context (to be kind to them), and not only did Ryanhood play them perfectly (within the “Sad and Happiness” framework no less), but Ryan sounded just like the original guitarist in each of the songs covered. I saw it again when Ryanhood played at a special event in Cohasset, MA, at a dedication and memorial performance for a promising 16-year old, Brooks Thomsen Singer, who suddenly passed away two weeks before entering his junior year of high school. Over and beyond Brooks' impressive myriad of activities, including teaching middle school students algebra and physics through the Urban Scholars Program at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, and his plans to help the MIT Museum with its "A Century of Flight" exhibition in the fall of 2003, he was also a devoted lover of music. Dr. David Singer, Brooks' father, saw Ryanhood performing at Boston’s 2004 Summer Street Performer’s Festival at Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market and asked them if they would play at Brooks' dedication ceremony in Cohasset, MA on October 2, 2004. Ryanhood did their research, discovered which songs Brooks was most endeared to, and incorporated them into their own. Brooks was a huge Bob Marley fan; Ryanhood amalgamated Marley’s “One Love” into one of theirs, and they managed to sound like a reggae act. Ryan Green’s guitar phrasing in particular personified the reggae tradition; this wasn’t an inferior or haphazard attempt at playing this song—it was the real thing. Another of Brooks’ favorite tunes was Santana’s “Oye Como Va” (Brooks had been an enthusiastic guitar student), and not only captured the essence of the song to exacting standards, but Ryan reproduced Carlos Santana’s guitar passages to a metaphysical certitude, sounding exactly like Santana’s recorded version—on an amplified acoustic guitar no less! Ryanhood don’t play half-hearted covers; they perform other artist’s material substantially and formidably.
Ryanhood’s exclusive portion of this set ended with a very unique adaptation of their tour de force, “Welcome You Into My Head.” This evening the tempo was slowed down ever so slightly, and the rhythm altered ever so delicately. The song took on a different musical structure, and the vocal harmonies especially resonated. The song is such an instrumental showpiece that it is often too easy to dismiss (or not listen attentively enough to) the voices. This is not to suggest that Ryan Green’s solo was anything less than mesmerizing (as always); in fact, the Club Passim audience was simply astonished with it. It differed from the way he usually does it, but in the most musically fulfilling manner imaginable.
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Owen Plant joined his good friends Ryanhood on stage for a spirited, crowd-pleasing mini-set before assuming the stage for his own performance. Although Ryanhood and Owen Plant do distinctively different things musically, their collaboration was successful and effective.
Owen Plant has been both a huge supporter of and benefactor to Ryanhood’s development in the Boston area. Among other things, it was Owen who first encouraged Ryan and Cameron to audition for a coveted slot at the Quincy Market Street Performer’s Festival series (Plant is one of its veteran performers). He was also a defining factor a propos Ryanhood’s attaining a performing slot at Cambridge’s legendary Club Passim. Owen has been a great friend and advocate of this duo, and Ryanhood are the first to acknowledge his contributions. Ryanhood fans should be aware of them too. I certainly am.
David D[ionne]
