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Black Parade-Duluth at Sacred Heart Music Center. Photos by Jill Fisher.

The final week of October provides the scariest music and weirdest events to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve (AKA Halloween).

For the past decade or so I’ve felt that donning costumes, frightening or otherwise, partying and trick-or-treating on this date is best left to children. But this year I made an exception and spent Saturday, Oct. 31, making the rounds between various musical venues incognito, that is to say in my own costume (sans beret.)

But more on that after reporting on an event leading up to the day.

Some folks call me a music critic, but I prefer the term “reviewer” since I don’t really have the background in music to be able offer meaningful or insightful criticism of music of any type. Many artists themselves have opined that music is all about one’s own taste, rather than what criticism claims to be good or bad.

There is certainly music that others are partial to which I cannot bear and conversely music I appreciate others cannot stand. (The Curmudgeon for one does not care for most banjo music, but I do.)

This past week was an example of this paradox. 

The C and I attended the tribute concert by Black Parade-Duluth on Friday, Oct. 30, at Sacred Heart Music Center, which I had mentioned in the “Upcoming” section of last week’s column.

I was curious to know about the band, My Chemical Romance since, reportedly, it was a big influence on some of our top local musicians.

That strangely-named band, had released its seminal album Black Parade, a rock opera, in 2006, and so this transitory local band decided to play the album in its entirety to commemorate its 20th anniversary.

I looked up My Chemical Romance on Wikipedia, which is not my usual habit, and found out that the New Jersey-based band is in the post-punk, “emo” category of rock.

Whoa!

Punk rock, post or otherwise, is not in my wheelhouse. And when I saw the music video of “Black Parade” by MCR on YouTube I got an inkling of what the C and I were in for on this evening.

Upon arrival at Sacred Heart, I was surprised that the center of the former sanctuary had been cleared of chairs — maybe to allow for dancing? But no, I was informed the empty space was to provide for a mosh pit!

Fortunately that was not how it was used, rather it was for a standing audience, as is the punk norm. Fortunately there were chairs available in the side aisles, for those who needed them.

The audience that filed in provided an eye-opener for me. Most of the young adults/Gen-Zers were dressed in goth fashion. Appropriate cladding for the Halloween season, as well as for this concert!

Ephemera.

The opening act was Ephemera covering the tunes of the band Evanescence, which has been described as having a symphonic goth rock style.

Ephemera is comprised of some of our most brilliant local musicians of which I am aware: Ren Howl (violin), Marshall Dillon (electric guitar), Manny Eisele (electric guitar), Courtney Ellian (keys), Ian Hopp (drums) plus those that are new to me Dalton Hanson (bass guitar) and Kristi Olson (lead vocals).

Kristi is “The Sound Lady” for Bent Paddle Brewing and produces On The Record. I didn’t realize she was a singer as well, though I should have.

Ephemera tackled songs from two Evanescence albums: five from Fallen (2003) and five from The Open Door (2006). “Going Under,” “Bring Me To Life,” “Tourniquet,” “Whisper” and “My Immortal” were on Fallen. Those from the latter album included “Lithium,” “Cloud Nine,” “Call Me When You’re Sober,” “Good Enough” and “Weight of the World.”

Just the titles of most of these songs convey the heavy nature of this music.

After a short break, all the songs from the Black Parade were covered by the headliners, which included several of the Ephemera musicians — Marshall, Manny, Courtney, Dalton and Ren Howl, singing lead. Joining them were Nick Howl (electric guitar) and Sten Duginski (drums). And that’s not all — six other instrumentalists were added on a few of the numbers playing tuba, trombone, trumpet, flute, clarinet and possibly a herald trumpet, to approximate the marching band in the music video of “Black Parade.”

You can bet the sound was loud!

Ren’s vocals were terrific as usual, though the acoustics of SHMC are such that the lyrics of the songs were virtually impossible to understand. That didn’t seem to faze the goth-dressed crowd, who appeared to know the songs. Bobbing heads and swaying bodies were the extent of the movement by attendees — no one was dancing as far a I could see, but then the C and I cut out before the end.

The contrast between this concert and Russ Sackett’s solo gig at Sir Ben’s earlier that evening couldn’t have been greater. The C and I stopped in for Russ’s first set, which included covers of well-known “oldies,” including his impressive, by-heart rendition of Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere.”

Amongst the covers, Russ performs original songs, one of which was “Time Is Short.”

I noted he had brought his own sound system an EV (electronic voice) Evolve with column array that improved the listening experience tremendously.

What I have realized is how much the generational difference in music makes to our enjoyment of it. Back in the 1960s, the parents of my generation almost universally dismissed the music we loved — the Rolling Stones in particular! (This is despite the Stones having discovered and reinterpreted earlier roots music.)

So it isn’t surprising that I would not care for what I heard performed at SHMC.

On Halloween it was back to my music comfort zone with a return to Sir Ben’s to finally hear Misisipi Mike and “Minisoda Jim Hall,” performing together . I had missed them twice previously. The early 6 pm show was wonderful, with Jim singing several of his original songs (“Don’t You Want True Love,” “Got The Urge To Go” “Robot Cowboy” and, by my request, “Here I Am”).

He alternated playing fiddle and acoustic guitar, sometimes with a slide, adding harmonica. MM did his part too with a politically timely original, “He’s The President.”

They also covered Hank Williams Sr., Neil Young and a couple of John Prine tunes.

Since the night was still young, I high-tailed it over to Bent Paddle Brewing Co. (without the Curmudgeon) to catch the end of the Hot Tamales Cosmos set.

All dressed in red, they were without Erin Aldridge on fiddle this evening, so Lee Martin filled in as a guest Tamale playing pedal steel guitar.

Saltydog was up next, though I opted to head over to Blacklist Brewing Co. to round out the night.

When I arrived at Blacklist I was fortunate enough to hear the last few numbers by Jumpsuit.

Wow, here we had several of the musicians who played Friday with Ephemera and Black Parade-Duluth (Courtney Ellian, Ian Hopp and Manny Eisele) switching gears to bring us their own funky compositions.

Talk about showing off their versatility — really remarkable!

Big Wave Dave and the Ripples, all dressed up in their Halloween costumes, were another highlight of this holiday (Holy Day?) show.

As I had hoped, they covered my favorite Talking Heads song, “Life During Wartime,” which, sadly, is too apropos nowadays.

Finally, I was able to get in some dancing, though my costume required significantly different moves than my normal ones. In any case, it was a fun evening and also a challenging mix of music through the weekend.

UPCOMING: You can bet I won’t miss seeing Paul Cebar on Thursday, Nov. 5, at the newly reopened West Theatre (hurrah!). The next day, Friday, Nov. 6, beginning at 6 pm Woodblind plays at Lake Superior Brewing Company out in Lakeside. Saturday the 7th has a slew of music gigs that will be tough to choose between — Janie and The Spokes will be at Sir Ben’s, Amy Speace with special guest Ashe Berton will be at Wussows, and Rich Mattson with Germaine Gemberling, Becky Kapell and Paul Bergen will perform at Cedar Lounge. And that’s just a few on offer that evening!

On Sunday the 8th the Owls Club Big Band will play the music of Oliver Nelson at Blacklist beginning at 5:30 pm ($5/cover).

See you out there!