On December 10th, 2006 my friend John Sweeney and I rolled into a blistering cold Chapel Hill, a quaint town that serves as home to one of the nation’s top universities. John had given me plenty of real estate business in the last two years and the least I could do was repay him with a ticket to one of the year’s best shows.
At eight o’clock we entered the main room of the impressive Chapel Hill Memorial Hall Theatre and sat down at our seats on Row E, which was to the left of the stage. Memorial Hall was a handsome place. The walls were adorned with traces of the university everywhere, including the Carolina blue walls that welcomed Ray and Tristan to our home state. The lighting was incredible; it gave dark but just enough light to see the setup on the stage, reminding of a campfire setting. For such an event it was only appropriate that it was in theater form. Personally, I think the talent and class gracing the stage tonight deserved more than a bar with drunk fraternity boys pleading with Tristan to lift her top.
Within a few minutes, a tall, freckled brunette walked out and strapped a Taylor guitar around her chest. How do I describe Tristan Prettyman’s music, you may ask? To me, describing music is like trying to discuss a great movie you’ve seen. You can try to describe it and break it down into the simplest of forms, but the only way to truly appreciate it is with a bucket of popcorn and experiencing it for yourself. However, for the sake of this review I’ll do my best. Tristan Prettyman’s songs are so simple and clean you’d think they were thrown in the washer and soaked, spun, and cleaned with a tropical Tide detergent. Here’s a recipe for a Tristan Prettyman song: Take two scoops of Folk, throw in a dash of Acoustic Rock, a pinch of Soul, and just a teaspoon of country and you’ve got a cup of Tristan Prettyman delight. As Ron Burgundy says “Drink it in…it always goes down smoothly.”
The freckle-faced San Diego native stepped to the microphone and sang the opening verse from her new unreleased track “Blindfold” and the acoustics of Memorial Hall immediately chimed to life. Her delivery was beautiful and my first immediate impression was that she was a much better guitar player than I imagined. After “Blindfold” her bandmates, which consisted of a bassist and an afro bearing drummer boy, filled in behind her and took their cue for the next song. Her set list was a collection of songs off her Love EP, unreleased tracks she’s planning to record in February, and her latest release “T w e n t y t h r e e” as she so cleverly spelled it. Her latest release has struck a chord in audiences across America and she chose to play some of the best tracks off the record including “Smoke” and “Breathe.” Her style was a breathe of fresh air, and Prettyman’s record has an unpolished, live-sounding quality to it that I’m sure was attributed to her willingness to only do a few takes to protect the authentic sound of her record. Prettyman certainly missed all the mistakes that normal, younger artist make when signed with large labels. She didn’t conform, and she’s not here to merely sell records.
Her sultry voice warmed up the room and the way she moved with her Taylor guitar was enough to make a married man blush. I’m afraid to admit that, besides my wife, Tristan Prettyman could possibly be the sexiest woman in the world. Her voice was intoxicating, and within a few minutes of the set I was questioning whether or not I could drive home without getting pulled over. She paid a tribute to the state of North Carolina by admitting between songs she had flirted with the idea of moving here, especially Asheville. This ignited yells from around the room, and I couldn’t help but notice most of them were young men who probably spent most of the evening mopping up the saliva on the floor from the constant drooling.
She was so sweet, whether it was her shy admission that she was currently in a deep state of punch drunk love or the way she took her guitar off. Each time she exchanged guitars she would take her strap off and sort of duck beneath the guitar, as if she didn’t want to mess her hair up, a reminder that she was just a girl that happened to be a musician.
Her delivery of the songs appeared effortless, as if the twenty four year old talent had traveled with the likes of Bonnie Raitt and Ani DiFranco for years. It was almost as if they wrote themselves inside out. She finished her set with a new track called “Echo” and capped off the night with her hit “Love Love Love” which is the only pop, upbeat song on her record. After she walked off stage I immediately thought that she could’ve easily been the closing act tonight. She made the mistake by telling the crowd she’d be at the merch table to sign and take pictures later on, and like a stalker I sought her out. I’ll make a long story short by saying I blushed heavily and, as someone that makes a living by selling homes, I was speechless and found myself fumbling for words when asking her to take a picture.
Within thirty minutes, the lights dimmed and Lamontagne stepped to the plate to have his crack at the theater crowd. Joining the ranks of soulful bearded men, Lamontagne has quickly emerged as this generation’s Van Morrison. I’d accurately label him “Mountain soul” to go along with his dingy mountain appearance. His music is a mixture of Americana and Folk, with many dusty love songs that I’m sure were recorded on the wooden porch of his old log cabin. The intimate setting with perfect, with just a few warm lights shining down on Ray and his scraggly beard and I immediately forgot the temperatures outside. I ditched the jacket and sweater and was instead sitting with Ray on a front porch in the Appalachian mountains sipping on a lemonade. The sun extended its warm hand on my face and life was well.
His voice was unbelievable. It was worn and raspy, as if he’d smoked three cartons of cigarettes and down five cups of coffee before hitting the stage. You could see Lamontagne giving putting every inch of his ability into the delivery of his words, as if the words were attempting to escape along with the soul of a man who had clearly been through Hell and back in a flannel shirt. I could feel the heat of his voice and passion on my face as it was projected to the crowd, out the lobby doors, and into the streets of the charming Chapel Hill campus. I was witnessing history. Maybe not the type of history that is printed into worthless elementary textbooks and taught by repitition, but a different kind. Everyone in the room that night was changed for good. They would remember the night Ray Lamontagne sang to them, because we are all better people for it. Success in the music industry can never be measured by numbers, sales, or tickets sold. Music is only good if it is for a cause. I’d say his cause was answered.
He played a selection off of his first two records entitled “Trouble” and “Til the Sun Turns Black.” My personal favorites from the show were “Shelter” and “Three More Days.” Lamontagne didn’t talk between songs, only offered a humble “Thank You” in a voice that resembled a shy schoolboy afraid to talk to a pretty girl. I couldn’t help but think about how reserved he was and how important these songs must be for him to make him go on stage and be the center of everybody’s attention. His band sounded great, which included another guitarist, a drummer, and a bassist with boobs, something you don’t see very often with a leading male vocalist.
Somehow Lamontagne had managed to take all of the things that made him miserable in life, bottled them up, and turned in to something beautiful. His songs had me tapping my toes, smiling, and making me want to pick up the phone to call my wife just to tell her I loved her.
That’s the type of thing that can’t be measured with record sales.
