Dan Tyminski's Well-Timed Encore
'Of everything that stands, the end.'
Saturday night at the Birchmere. The Dan Tyminski Band is kinda-sorta closing out a red-hot set of bluegrass by blazing through "Freeborn Man," the Paul Revere and the Raiders song that's become something like a modern bluegrass staple.
It's an absolutely explosive finger-picking semi-finale. (Almost as good as this all-star version.)
The crowd goes nuts. Tyminski unstraps his guitar. The boys in the band wave. The crowd hoots and hollers some more. And then the strangest/greatest thing happens: Tyminski, who hasn't moved from his center-stage spot, puts his guitar back on.
It's encore time, and the band hasn't even bothered with that bogus modern concert ritual known as The Wholly Symbolic Walk-Off. Why bother, since everybody knows they're coming back, anyway?
"We were going to walk down the hallway," Tyminski tells the crowd. "But it's so cold by the doorway - and the instruments would get all out of tune - we just hoped you'd keep clapping so we didn't have to leave the stage."
And then the band that never left begins the coda to the concert that never really ended, taking a walk with Jimmy Martin's "Sunny Side of the Mountain." A most excellent exit strategy. Bravo, boys. Bra! Vo!
(This, by the way, is a subject that the aforementioned David Segal explored in a 2004 Washington Post rant against planned encores. But that story has apparently left the digital building, as I can't find a live link. So, um: Thanks, you'vebeengreat, goodnight!)
By J. Freedom du Lac |
March 3, 2008; 3:51 PM ET
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Posted by: 23112 | March 3, 2008 4:54 PM
dan tyminski! sad i missed it.
Posted by: msto | March 4, 2008 10:33 AM
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I love bands that eschew the bogus walk-off. My cousin has actually made that part of his show banter in the past..."we could just walk off here and pretend that we're done, but you know we're coming back, so **** it. We've got ten more minutes."