When Rivers Meet
By David Bulley
Bands do live albums for a variety of reasons, the spontaneity, the surprise, the sound concert halls give, as opposed to studios, and the crowd. There is nothing like the energy and urgency of a live audience. As musicians know, the audience can make or break you. They can offer endless supplies of energy and enthusiasm, which pours into the performance and takes you someplace special, a unique experience, or it can drain the life force from a band, leaving the tunes more soulless than the worst studio.
Lucky for us, the live album Flying Free Tour Live by When Rivers Meet, is the former, cackling with energy, full of soul, and including tender moments such as when during the lovely and sad ballad, “Don’t Tell Me Good-bye” when Grace Bond messes up a lyric and laughs and the audience, who was singing along just laugh with her. Moments like this are why we love live performances and are worth capturing.
The live album features songs from When Rivers Meet’s first two albums, We Fly Free and Saving Grace, and songs from their two EPs, The Uprising, and Innocence of Youth. So, the audience knows the songs and proves it by filling out every chorus and chant with enthusiastic singing. Lyrically, When Rivers Meet includes a great deal of repeated phrases and reoccurring choruses, which if you can pull it off, includes your audience, lets them learn the song as it goes, and invites participation. When it goes right the repeated words stay interesting, usually as the result of a brilliant singer.
Grace Bond is a brilliant singer, sometimes belting so hard, and so perfectly, that she brings to mind Ann Wilson. On the Song “Lost & Found” her soaring lyrics remind us of great belters, and on the sexually charged, powerful female-voiced rocker, “Kissing The Sky” combined with a guitar that seems to be the masculine voice in the song and at every turn acknowledges the singer’s power, which could have been a Heart song.
Aaron Bond (lead guitar, vocals) and Grace Bond (vocals, mandolin, fiddle) seem to be in constant conversation. In the best blues tradition, the lead guitar never steps on a vocal, and always seems to answer it. Whether its gritty southern slide such as the politically charged accusation of a song, “Walking on a Wire” or the pure rock and roll tones of “Lost and Found” which might answer the question, what would it sound like if Ann Wilson sang for Def Leppard? Answer: awesome.
Many of these songs seem to go in the opposite direction that one might expect, both lyrically and musically. In the great song “My Baby Says That He Loves Me” one might expect a sweet ballad, but instead you get a rocker, that opens with cymbals and floor toms, leading into a cappella chants, that just leap into a drum and bass heavy rock anthem.
The Song “Walking on the Wire” asks the question, “Are you a fortunate son” and then answers it with the sneering, dripping, scorn, “Face the truth you’ve never won.” For vocals, and with a guitar tone straight out of the Mississippi delta, it has contempt for those fortunate sons. The song “Innocence of Youth” is another one that seems as if it might be a ballad, but surprises us with a real traditional foot-stopping, clapping, powerhouse. Which even talks about the devil.
Most of the time when Grace and Aaron sing together, they both sing the melody. Their combined voices bring songs out of masculine or feminine voices and bring about the effect of de-gendering the song. They don’t often sing harmony parts and when they do, it’s brief, playful vocal runs by Grace. So, when “Bury My Body” comes on, the harmonies are a surprise in a song full of surprises. This is acoustic, with big full chords and a whistling intro which puts us on the set of spaghetti western, and then the harmonies, into, out of, over, and under each other, elegantly adding mood and texture to a lyrically simply traditional ballad. The song ends with a fiddle solo, which seems as if it was put through an octaver guitar pedal because it could very well be a cello. It takes advantage of those sweet low tones and closes the song and makes sure we remember it.
Free Flying Tour Live by When Rivers Meet is an excellent album. It represents the best of what a live album can be and it presents material some of the band’s audience already know and can enjoy in a brand new way. It is surprising, tender, soulful, inviting, inclusive, and really fun.
Watch “Flying Free Tour Live Trailer”
When Rivers Meet website
Interesting article on an impressive band! The audience was definitely feeding them energy in the video.