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Judgement Day, Photo by Laura Winn
I have the utmost respect and admiration for Jerry Perry, but sometimes I wonder about his taste in music. Almost every artist or band he books is his "favorite," or is "amazing," or "just so cool." I guess Perry's just exceptionally open-minded.
But I have to agree with all the good things he said about the six acts I saw Sunday at Chalk-It-Up. The musicians were so impressive that it's going to take two reviews to give everyone their proper dues.
Part One
I arrived at Fremont Park just in time to catch the last few songs of singer-songwriter Ricky Berger's afternoon set.
Berger enchanted the crowd with her no-frills, jazzy folk numbers on the piano and ukulele. Berger's warm, breezy vocals accentuated by her light lisp and modest and cheerful personality only make her more endearing on songs like "Nice Dreams" and "The Heart of a Circle."
Berger cements her wholesome, throwback appeal when she sings "I just don't like cursing or burping or smoking or spitting or dressing half-naked or just being gross" on "I'm Kinda Shy." But Berger's no prude; she's a classy songstress, like a livelier and more interesting Norah Jones.
I liked the next act, Bay area's Foxtails Brigade, but the duo of vocalist/classical guitarist Laura Weinbach and violinist/vocalist Sivan Sadeh lost a sizeable portion of the audience with their experimental sound.
Weinbach's soprano, sometimes shouting vocals paired with the haunting violin and hostilely plucked guitar, might have been a bit too avant-garde for the Chalk-It-Up crowd. At their most mellow moments, I was reminded of The Beatles "Eleanor Rigby," but more often the sound was harsh and razor sharp.
As I watched the duo, sometimes joined by cellist Lewis Patzner of Judgement Day, I pictured them sharing a bill with Agent Ribbons. Come to find out, they already have. There goes my inspired comparison.
Remember when Metallica performed with the San Francisco Orchestra and it was actually quite excellent? The guys in San Francisco-based Judgement Day rocked Freemont Park just as hard, but with only a violin and cello.
The instrumental duo captivated the biggest crowd of the afternoon as they proved you can wail on classical strings with same intensity and passion as you can on electric guitar. Judgement Day normally plays with a drummer, and from listening to their MP3s, the full sound is kind of like listening to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, but a lot cooler because it's just three musicians, and as far as I know, they don't do Christmas covers.
At about this point in the program I took a tour of the sponsored sidewalk chalk creations benefiting children's art education in Sacramento. Take your own tour on Flickr.com, and then check back tomorrow for part two of the review.
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