The Commonwealth Gallery, a stark space located on the third floor of an old warehouse on Baldwin St, seemed like a strange place for both of the events here tonight. The first was an art exhibit by an artist whose work I wasn’t familiar with. Considering that all but one of the large canvases in the gallery’s top floor labyrinth-like space were priced at a staggering $30,000, I would have expected minimal security to be watching the artwork. At least to keep people from stepping on the hundreds of tiles arranged on the floor in front of one of them. Not terribly obvious signs at the three edges warned people to stay off the art, but they weren’t terrible effective. If I were going to shell out 30 K for something I would like to know it hadn’t been walked on.
The opening night reception was also host to a variety of musical acts. I had meant to get there earlier to catch some of Christopher Buckingham’s solo singer songwriter fare but only made it for the last song. Buckingham then took a seat behind the drum kit for the debut of Vid Libert & His Problems, the latest project from the genre-hopping Libert. This collection finds Vid in a country mood with a few of his usual suspects on hand to help him out. Multi-instrumentalist Mike (whose last name I still don’t know despite the fact that I’ve known him the longest) accompanies Vid often, but his pedal steel was most effective here where its high and lonesome sound lends an authenticity to their new sound.
It isn’t entirely new of course, their 45 minute set included several of the songs that Vid has been playing, you know, just countried up a bit, a shuffle here, a little more pedal steel there. Songs like “Tennessee” and the terrific “Maybe That’s Enough” felt like they were meant to be played by this band. Of the new songs, the last song they played, a bouncy Highway 61 revisit, was probably my favorite. Unfortunately their first gig may also be their second to last as some of the band members are moving away in the coming months. I can only hope Vid finds some folks to fill in, this is a band I would like to see more than once.
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