It’s been a little over a month since I began experiencing my first full summer in Champaign and already I find myself swooning pretty hard for the decidedly sleepy meandering that seems to define the summer lifestyle in this college town.
This isn’t to say that things aren’t happening, they are. The Market is back, the Urbana Blues Fest is around the corner, and there are Weber grills all around town still cooling from last night’s barbecue. But still, things are different around here. Once the university exhaled hordes of college kids back to the ‘burbs for free laundry and mom’s lasagna this place, seemed to exhale with it. There is a hushed excitement about town and I like it very much.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 21, the Highdive will play host to northwest orchestral-folk staple Horse Feathers, and the show could not be happening at a more apropos time. Horse Feathers’ spacious and swelling music is most often associated with the quiet reflection of darker and rainier days, and although this isn’t fall in Portland, it seems to be a perfect fit for the quiet march I find myself making through summer in Champaign.
This will not be, by any means, an in-your-face feel-good summer rock show. Instead, this hauntingly pretty music promises to bring the “sitting on your front porch with a good beer” side of the summer to town and that seems to me to be as important to this town as the next Illini football game (just ask the guy sleeping next to me at Kopi with a book in his lap; he gets it).
Guitarist and lead singer Justin Ringle founded the Portland, Oregon-based band back in 2004 and, although there have been a cast of musicians surrounding Ringle throughout the years, the three records he has released have all been met with well-deserved critical acclaim. The band’s latest album, Thistled Spring, was released in 2010 by Kill Rock Stars and is chock full of beautifully crafted lyrics and the swelling strings of Catherine Odell (cello) and Nathan Crockett (violin). This is pretty stuff here, folks. Just take a quick listen to a track like “Belly of June” and you can quickly hear why this band has emerged as a mainstay in the indie-folk scene. They get pacing, they have wonderful dynamics, and they understand how to make a song feel genuinely haunting.
Accompanying Horse Feathers on this tour is Hello Mtn, a Portland-based folk duo featuring the vocals and cello of Horse Feathers’ very own Catherine Odell along with guitarist Matthew Morgan. I had a chance to hear these two play in Portland a few months back and they put on an amazingly intimate show. Last time I saw them play, Morgan strapped a kick drum pedal to an old suitcase for percussion and, although that sounds like some hipster nonsense, it was pretty sweet. But in the end Hello Mtn is all about Odell’s beautiful voice and that alone is enough to make this band a great reason to show up early for this show.
Also opening for Horse Feathers is Champaign’s own Ryan Groff (of Elsinore) and although I haven’t yet seen him play, I have had several friends recommend that I go out and check out his solo stuff so, given the high accolades, it seems like a pretty great fit.
Horse Feathers, Tuesday, June 21 at the Highdive
Doors: 8 p.m.
Ryan Groff: 8:30 p.m.
Hello Mtn: 9:20 p.m.
Horse Feathers: 10:15 p.m.
Tickets are $8 in advance and at the door.