Photos of Sunday night’s Marian Call gig/party

Josh
Tuesday
9:47 pm

Despite the worst weather I’ve ever seen in my neck of the woods in June, the Marian Call Geek6-Browncoats-And-My-Neighbors-Backyard-Bash went fantastically. Marian gave a great performance, debuted the title track off of her upcoming album and stayed up into the wee hours to socialize and hang out with concertgoers. There’s a photo gallery at the bottom, if you want to just skip to the good part.

She was, in a word: classy without being pretentious. (It’s four words, but the direct object counts as one, and the qualifying phrase is effectively a subjugated participle, and therefore doesn’t count.)

Also, I make up grammar rules.

The set-up:

It was beautiful weather Sunday morning — so much so, that I debated setting up the tent. But all the weather forecasts assured me rain was coming, and my trick knee was barking, so I figured I should go on ahead with it. The tent was up, the clever signage hung carefully (including an extra-clever green room sign, complete with dinosaurs arrayed on the table), when the rain hit.

The weather:

Marian arrived in the middle of a torrential downpour. It was one of those Midwestern rain poundings Utah doesn’t often see. We rushed the equipment into the garage until the front passed, only to be replaced by a damp, blanket-requiring chill that never quite went away.

The food:

A lot of the Utah Browncoat contingent brought potluck-style fare. The highlight was a giant stock pot of potato cream soup that was the ideal complement to a chilly evening. There were so many dips, desserts, crackers and snacks that we forgot to set out two crock pots full of meatiness, ensuring me a cholesterol-laden week of leftovers.

The people:

The crowd was a really bizarre melding of distinct demographics. The show attracted many residents of my rough-and-tumble neighborhood, a handful of people from my workplace, and a large contingent of Utah Browncoats. It was a curious mix at best, but it made for a colorful evening.

The show:

Marian went on around 7:15, and did an outstanding job. Her blend of “coffee shop folk and funk” went over well with the crowd — even though half of them didn’t get a lot of her geeky references, the music and themes hold up on their own. It was an informal affair, full of questions, comments, discussion, and the occasional “kid saying the darndest thing.”

Afterwards, she stayed around until the last person had left, signing CDs, chatting and generally just being friendly.

The person:

It was a rushed day, but there was enough time to hang out with Marian a little bit and get some insight into the person that writes such cool, fun, nerdy-without-being-contrived stuff. First off, she sports a 57th batallion Malcolm Reynolds dog tag around her neck (something that took me an embarrassingly long time to pick up on).

She also totes around one of my favorite pieces of technology from recent years — a 12″ Powerbook, which she proudly touts as the machine she produced all of her albums on. (I miss that size and form factor, and would gladly pony up if Apple came up with another sub-footer.) When not singing, her conversations come at you rapid fire, and she backs them up with deeply convicted opinions. (My wife noted that our conversation about the impending demise of journalism went a mile a minute, and “was on a whole other plane.”)

The resulting goulash of feeling:

It was the first house concert my wife and I have ever hosted, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last. The combination of hearing great music and sharing some wonderful time with people I’d otherwise have never met was an experience that we won’t soon forget. And, for my impressionable young daughter, Marian was part superhero, part princess, and my girl couldn’t take her eyes off her the whole time.

She has a signed poster on her wall, and, if you could wear out a CD by listening to it, it’d be halfway gone by now. She spent most of her Monday morning acting like Kaylee at the end of “Shindig,” listening to Vanilla and laying on her bed, staring at the poster.

Photos from the evening:

(Click any photo to open up a slide viewer.)