Josh, Marshall and I played the show that would become Live at the Harvard Mixer Ball, Vol. 2 on a hot, smoky day in fall 2020. It was the biggest show the band had played in months (unless you count livestreams, which we sure didn’t) and we were thrilled to be playing for real, safely distanced people at a real house concert. Playing acoustic instruments, we gathered round one microphone and played new versions of our songs. We’re delighted to present some selections from that show, with major aid in production from David Duggan and artwork from Matt Battaglia.
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I grew up watching VHS tapes of Garth Brooks concerts, but when I first started performing regularly I had hundreds of bootleg mp3s of Jason Mraz’s acoustic trio shows that I listened to all the time, comparing versions and studying how he made each show special for crowds that had seen him countless times before. He was so freaking good at it. Even though I found my own home in a different genre, I knew I wanted live recordings to be part of my music career. I haven’t lived up to that as much as I wanted…turns out setting up your own PA most gigs doesn’t leave a lot of time or energy to set up a quality recording rig, and it took a lot longer than I’d hoped to regularly get to play to crowds that *listen*. But with these Harvard Mixer Ball projects, my hope is to capture some of the magic I’ve felt playing these songs for people. The goal is some triangulation of Garth’s energy, Mraz’s intimacy, and Josh Ritter’s storytelling that stays true to the kid from the California’s golden hills whose childhood was an neverending cassette parade of country and Creedence.
Thanks for listening.