Summer Haze

Let’s talk concerts. For whatever reason, I have been blessed enough to be attending a bunch this summer, the first of which took place Saturday the 30. The Head and the Heart headlined the 2012 Party in the Park in Broad Ripple. The site was Opti-Park over a large baseball diamond. While it wasn’t quite a mini-Bonnaroo as Brad Holtz tried to hail it, it was an excellent venue for an evening of folk. Despite heat that could melt skin, someone wearing the same dress as me and a guy with a shirt that said, “Give me head til I’m dead,” it was an amazing show.

10 Party in the Park 2012

Openers were the Nashville band Night Beds, and Minnesota’s Trampled by Turtles. With the height of the heat during Night Beds performance, the low-key indie band had a tough time rousing the audience from the sleepy feeling that accompanies scorching weather. The performance was admirable though, and the subtle influences of their native Nashville made them stand out.

After a smoothie break and a little incident involving a wasp, I was ready to give Trampled by Turtles a go. Seeing their name on the flyer a week prior to the show, I had listened to their latest album, Stars and Satellites. Their raw, folksy, bluegrass sound was definitely appealing in recorded form, but that did not prepare me for their live performance. With five instruments (guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo, fiddle), this group of mountain men shook the park awake. They played with so much ferocity and sincerity, the crowd was able to forget about the heat and instead focus on the band’s astonishing mandolin/fiddle solos.  I have never seen an instrument played so quickly. I found myself dancing along. Standouts were “Alone” and “Walt Whitman.” These guys will be headlining shows of their own in no time. The crowd loved their energy, and even I had to pay way too much to get a t-shirt out of adoration.

I was worried that Trampled by Turtles might upstage The Head and the Heart.  I had built it up so much in my head; I was scared that they wouldn’t be all I had hoped for. They took the stage and the entire park stood up. They opened with “Cats and Dogs,” and Charity meowed in place of the recorded version’s animal noises. That woman. The audience loved her. During “Winter Song,” the crowd cheered her on every phrase of her solo. At the end she remarked, “You guys are ridiculous!” This being the band’s largest headlining show thus far, their modesty and reaction to the adoring crowd was so refreshing.  They played a couple new songs with much the same sound as the previous album, but the real treat was the obvious closing number, “Rivers and Roads.” That song, at once so personal and so all-encompassing, had the whole park singing along and gave me goose bumps, as if it was the first time I was hearing it. The lights finally 

dimmed and the band filed off stage.

After a solid two minutes of cheering and hollering, Charity and Jonathan came back on stage to dedicate a song to the audience called, “Ever Since I First Laid Eyes on Indianapolis.” The duet was stellar and adorable. The rest of the band joined them on stage to play “Down in the Valley.” The concert was officially over. The sun was gone and the audience started to disperse, but for about an hour, we were all together entranced by these people who made songs that, over the past year, have made us cry and dance and sing along. It was a brilliant way to spend a summer night.  If you can find a show near you with any of these three artists, it will be well worth the price of a ticket.