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Tombstone Chapel at the Earth Rider Festival Grounds.

This past week I was able to see a number of musical acts for the first time, including Yuya Mix at Lincoln Park on Tuesday, July 29. The Music in the Park Concert Series switched from Chester Park to Lincoln Park the week before. This is one of those really nice outdoor venues for evening performances, with the restored brick pavilion providing good acoustics. The performance area faces west, such that the audience has the sun at its back and the performers are not backlit as they are in Chester.

Although new to me, Yuya Mix, a singer-songwriter who hails from South Dakota, has been playing around Duluth for five years now. He called himself a one-man band, though his act is not at all silly (like Steve Solkela’s one-man band) but is straightforward and sincere. 

Mix plays acoustic guitar, ukelele, suitcase drum, foot tambourine, harmonica and kazoo. (Well his one song with the kazoo was sort of silly.) 

His vocals were surprisingly varied, from pure crooning to a gravelly-voiced growl a la the 75-year-old Tom Waits!

Yuya Mix

We got to hear several of his original tunes, including “Perry’s Song,” “The Pizza Boy Song” and an upbeat fun one about a true story of two bank robbers in Sioux Falls, South Dakota (didn’t catch the title to this one). 

What a pleasant 79-degree summer evening, even with the smoky skies we’ve been enduring. Check it out on Aug. 12, when Breanne Marie and the Front Porch Sinners will be playing. It is the last scheduled concert, though a rain date on Aug. 19 is likely to be used.

The next new group I got to see was Homegrown Tomatoes at Sir Ben’s on Wednesday, July 30. But surprise surprise, it consisted of three fabulous well-known musicians: Sonja Martin (Feeding Leroy), Nate Hynum (Black River Revue) and Harrison Olk (Danny Frank & the Smoky Gold). 

The trio played on the patio rather than inside since it was such a warm evening. The Curmudgeon and I were there just for the first set but got to hear each of the players sing lead, which in my mind is almost always a good thing.

Sonja’s voice soars, especially on her wonderful original songs. They do justice to classic folk tunes too, such as “Bury Me Beneath the Willow.” Nate sang “It Ain’t the Life I Dreamed of,” letting us know that he is more than just a masterful mandolin player. 

And Harrison, who has a great voice with just enough nasal twang to give his songs an authentic country sound. He sang “Gone With the Banker” that was written by his dad.  It was hard to leave after the first set, but we had another group to check out that evening.

Pier B’s Courtside Concerts take place in another cool outdoor venue with plenty of room to dance. On this same Wednesday evening the Jake Birdseye Band played two sets of almost all country-rock covers. 

Again, I had not had the opportunity to hear this group before. Bandleader Jake looks too young to have driven truck for 15 years but that experience provided the basis for his original tune “Down The Road.” 

Other members include Carl Olson (of Landscapes) on lead guitar, Matt Bosshart (also in Buckwild) on bass guitar, and Luke Perry on drums. It was interesting to hear Carl contribute his guitar licks to these country tunes after having seen him with Landscapes, the nuevo jazzy instrumental group. (I reviewed that group in the January 26, 2023, Listen column). 

Jake Birdseye Band

The songs the Birdseye band covered included classics (Merle Haggard’s 1968 release “Mama Tried”) oldies but goodies (Toby Keith’s 1993 “Should Have Been a Cowboy”) and more recent releases (“Young Man’s Blues” by Parker McCollum, 2020 and Morgan Wallen’s 2021 “More Than My Hometown”). Even pop songs were in the mix — “Take It Easy” a 1972 release by the Eagles – ah those tunes that take us baby boomers back to our 20s. 

All in all, I found this to be a very satisfying, high-energy concert. I believe I will get out to see this group again (likely without the Curmudgeon!).

If that wasn’t enough country-rock for one week, I got over to Earth Rider Festival Grounds the next day, Thursday, July 31, to check out Tombstone Chapel, another of my firsts. Here again, though, two of the band members were familiar to me: Stephanie Jago on keys also plays with Sidestreet Detour and Jim Hagstrom who plays with the bands Dog Talk, 500 Million Society and Father Hennepin as well. 

However, I couldn’t recall seeing the other three members. Mick Bail and Bob Bursell both play electric and acoustic guitars; Seth Anderson plays bass. Vocals are shared, with Mick being the lead vocalist, but each of them sings lead on some tunes and all except Jim sing harmonies on others.

Amazingly, I didn’t note any overlap in playlists between the TC and JB bands. What a deep reservoir of songs there is for this genre of music. 

Tombstone Chapel performs covers of the classics such as “Margaritaville,” REO Speedwagon’s “Back On the Road Again” and the Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider.” They also covered the fairly recent Dylan composition, “Black Rider,” from his 2020 Rough and Rowdy Ways album. 

Stephanie took the lead on “Ring of Fire,” which was unexpected, while the “Authority Song” by John Cougar Mellencamp was a bit out of the country category. Perhaps it was something of a political comment. 

Like the Birdseye band, this is a group I will enjoy hearing and dancing to again. 

And then on Friday the Curmudgeon and I attended the FinnFest Symphony Orchestra and International Choir Concert at Denfeld High School auditorium. 

For someone who is somewhat ambivalent about classical orchestral music, I really enjoyed this concert of Finnish works. Just watching conductor Craig Randal Johnson was fascinating. 

FinnFest Symphony Orchestra and International Choir

I particularly enjoyed “En Saga, Op. 9,” a 1902 piece by Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) which, according to the program, is a tone poem. It was thrilling and so evocative it put me in an accepting frame of mind. 

Betsy Husby, the cello soloist on “Concert for Cello and Orchestra” dating to 1983, is a musician I’ve seen mostly with smaller chamber orchestras, quartets and quintets. She played wonderfully.

“Symphony No. 1” (the 1988 revision) by Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016) was also quite enjoyable, with virtuosic playing by the various instruments in the orchestra. 

But it was when the FinnFest International Choir was featured in the last portion of the program that I really took notice. The choir occupied the balcony and was split in two, with half overlooking either side of the stage and needing two directors: Maria Männistö and Eva-Christiina Pietarinen. (One of our favorite Finns, Steve Solkela, was a member.) 

The choir performed traditional Finnish songs with the orchestra accompanying them. 

It was the finale, “Finlandia” by Sibelius, that really sent me. Originally an orchestral piece, lyrics by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi were added in 1940. Although it isn’t the Finland national anthem, it was a powerful and emotional rendition. Finns in the audience joined in singing along with the choir and one could just sense their pride in their heritage.

One of the reasons I really wanted to attend this concert was the venue, the beauty of which I have heard much about but have never seen before. 

I wasn’t the only one impressed with this place; conductor Johnson made a point of praising the craftmanship and the “fantastic acoustics” of the auditorium and further opined that it should be a regular concert hall. I couldn’t agree more.

UPCOMING: Well I don’t know about anyone else, but I have my three-day pass for Bayfront Blues Fest this weekend, Aug. 8-10, so you can bet you’ll see me there. Hope to see you there too!