TAKE CARE
9:06 p.m. – Start me up.
9:08 p.m. – Drummer Luke Bergkoetter is the most straight-backed drummer I’ve maybe ever seen.
9:16 p.m. – Dudes fold their arms.
9:18 p.m. – My ethical boundaries as a journalist prevent me from telling soundman Carl to throw as much reverb and delay as possible on keyboardist Nick Foreman’s vocals.
9:21 p.m. – The crowd, though small, are here listening intently… Not standard for a Cowboy Monkey show.
9:24 p.m. – The bass just kicked in.
Guitarist Mark Wyman breaks a guitar string.
9:25 p.m. – Guitarist Kyle Scott hands guitarist Mark Wyman a spare guitar.
“We’ll see what happens,” he says. “It’s only a 20-minute song.”
9:30 p.m. – Take Care are the only Champ- [pause]
9:31 p.m. – Drummer Luke Bergkoetter’s drumming totally derails my train of thought.
9:31 p.m. – Carl has added the reverb and delay without me saying a word.
9:38 p.m. – Oh, yes – Take Care are the only Champaign band that illicit memories of Elliott.
Swagger.
9:41 p.m. – “Teach your children to be healers and farmers.”
MAJEURE
10:13 p.m. – Marathon and Dr. Responsible would want to be here. Maybe Jeremiah Fisher, too.
10:14 p.m. – “I couldn’t do that shit on the multitasking alone. My brain can’t handle it.” #overheardattherockshow
10:21 p.m. – In come the beats and my interest. Sold.
10:28 p.m. – This music surprisingly, and thankfully, can command attention.
10:38 p.m. – EVERYBODY gets it.
MASERATI
10:55 p.m. – Stage set with a symmetry of gear foreboding the loudness and grooviness of what’s about to happen to our bodies.
11:06 p.m. – “I am so glad to see Maserati [in Champaign].” #overheardattherockshow
11:08 p.m. – Beats pulse through the PA.
Crowd w00ts.
Drummer Mike Albanese starts with the bass drum.
Groove palpable within room.
11:10 p.m. – Full band exerts expertise.
11:16 p.m. – Everybody’s head now bobs.
11:17 p.m. – DJ Belly’s head now bobs.
11:20 p.m. – Call them a dance band right now and a pedestrian wouldn’t disagree; however, a guitar pick staring up at the crowd from between dancing feet is no surprise at all, here, now.
11:21 p.m. – A few gracious words and they careen into the next number.
Heavier, steady, then quickly blissful.
11:23 p.m. – Drummer Mike Albanese and/or this song remind me of Riddle of Steel’s Rob Smith.
11:25 p.m. – Guitarist Coley Dennis’ Metallica shirt, all of a sudden, reveals itself as having not been ironic at all.
11:26 p.m. – The sounds of applause, and Joe Funderburk saying, “I’m mad I can’t play like that.”
11:27 p.m. – If The Edge wasn’t Irish and necessarily so white…
11:29 p.m. – Cymbals cease and the playback hollers some organ tones, and for the first time in the night I hear more Gabriel than Collins.
11:30 p.m. – Wait, no, there’s still a significant amount of Phil Collins going on here
11:33 p.m. – “Honest to goodness, I fucking love it! The drummer up front, that guy’s a monster. It’s like that Wall of Sound, but staged backwards.” — Local business owner
11:46 p.m. – HUM tour manager Chris Green plays air drums.
Then air guitar, at the bar.
Rhythm switches up, he pivots, and saunters up to the front of the stage with purpose.
Head emphatically nods.
11:48 p.m. – Maserati are ready?
Strike that.
MASERATI IS A GROOVE UNIT.
11:49 p.m. – Man just shakes his head and smiles out of pure, unadulterated enjoyment of this music and it happening at him and his face.
11:50 p.m. – Take Care guitarist Mark Wyman maneuvers his way up to the front of the crowd.
Observes pedalboards and fretboards intently.
11:54 p.m. – By the merch table, I ask Maserati’s sometime touring guitarist Tristan Wraight if he ever watches Maserati’s new guitarist playing the Maserati songs he used to play when he played in Maserati and if he checks to see if they’re playing with the same phrasing as he had. His eyes slowly smile, then he shrugs, nods, and laughs. A fun moment, but within two measures we’re both so mesmerized by the beat we’ve forgotten what we were just talking about.
11:55 p.m. – “I’ve never seen them with this drummer! He’s making me so hard!”
#overheardattherockshow
11:57 p.m. – DJ Belly dangerously close to actually dancing.
12:01 a.m. – Maserati are consummate.
12:06 a.m. – Maserati do work with grace.
In general, and very much specifically right now at 12:06, at Cowboy Monkey, in Champaign, Illinois.
12:11 a.m. – Maserati stop making music.
Front row dancer yells, “Pink Floyd! Pink Floyd!”
Photos courtesy of Troy Stanger.