Sarah Jarosz serenades, inspires and impresses with tunes off her new record at The Bowery Ballroom.
Let’s face it: Right now, the world feels like it has descended into a bit of boiling chaos. This article’s word count is far too small to list the challenges that many of you might be facing, and it certainly wouldn’t do them justice as text on a webpage.
But allow me to present a microcosm of magic, and a mini haven of steel strings and trust, that does exist.
And that, my friends, is Sarah Jarosz.
Interwoven through her recent set at The Bowery Ballroom, 10 days after her newest release “Undercurrent,” were moments that transcended song and tapped in our current psyche. It seemed that, perhaps she can help build us up from bones. She has documented this experience in song this after all:
The night’s so dark and grey
But you’ve helped me find my way
Through the wild and wonders of this world
— “Build Me Up From Bones”
Indeed, with a folk music revival driven by young guns, complete with the establishment of Chris Thile as the new host of A Prairie Home Companion and inspired by a number of famous female trios (Case/Veirs/Young, The Wailin Jennys, Jarosz/Watkins/Donovan), there is reason to hope. It’s a highlight in even the darkest of times and it was a trend not lost by the audience. As one fan noted: “You can say whatever you want about the world right now. But thank goodness for a folk revival.”
Sarah noted it too: “The world can be a terrible place and we are more thankful now than ever for music.” Such statements made Sarah’s lyrics sparkle with a ferocity I had never before heard in her work. “I can make your world a little better,” she enthused, and somehow, I believed her declaration. That line was no longer a lyric; it was a prominent and profound theory of her potential impact; a subtle beautiful power that perhaps one she didn’t even know she possessed.
That power was at work at the Bowery Ballroom. Suddenly everywhere you looked, every delight your eardrums could capture, every inkling of amazement you witnessed was a moment of trust.
Trust that Sara and her bandmates would always end on the same chord together. Every. Single. Time.
Trust that somehow, you’ll finally nail the Instagram photo you were hoping to capture.
Trust that the live versions of your favorite songs, even if they felt a little different, were magical and new.
Trust that every flourish and finish and solo will be met with applause, yelps, and enthusiasm.
Trust in the silent moments. Someone will cheer.
Trust in your fingers roaming across strings of all types, with or without frets.
Trust that you always need to tune every instrument, every time.
Trust that going to concerts by yourself only means you’re standing solo but also standing amongst colleagues with a shared musical passion.
Trust in that guitarist’s ridiculously sexy guitar. Seriously.
Trust that the opener, The Brother Brothers, have the best election joke I have ever heard.
Did you see what Bernie Sanders did? He released his own cheese. It comes with its own shredder. So he can make America grate again.
Trust in your own thoughts, struggle, and process, even if they don’t create a product or song.
Trust that even when you are gripped in loneliness, the kind that can only be drawn out with six string miracles and haunting vocals, trust that you will move through it. As Sarah says, “Nothing is forever anymore.”
And trust too that if you are rebuilding a new version of your life…Trust that change, and the ripples and waves of its movement, both the hard grip and the light touch it can have… trust they are all a normal part of our “building.” It is echoed in Sarah’s words: “Do you feel this undercurrent and the changing of the tides?”
Even at the end of Sarah’s show, when she dove into two I’m With Her songs without her two (also famous) compatriots… I started to doubt they would show up. “But Sara Watkins has a show tomorrow” I thought. “And isn’t Aoife O’Donovan touring too?” I wondered. I started to doubt if they might surprise us.
And then, there they were venturing on stage to close out Sarah’s set with “Come On Up to the House.”
“See?” She seemed to say. “Trust me.”
I should known better. I should have trusted the experience.
And with Sarah’s help, perhaps we can all trust a little more.
