The fun thing about bar shows following festival shows is that you never know who will show up to play.
It was technically Joshua Beebe and His Forest Orchestra’s packed show at the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Saturday, Aug. 28.
But surprise guests Satellite and the Harpoonist and surprise surprise guests, the Rondell Roberts band, who were enjoying refreshments after playing the Coulee Blues Festival, ended up closing the show.
I missed an opening set by a trimmed down Dark Wrangler.
But I was in time for Joshua Bebee and the Forest Orchestra.
Local singer songwriter Joshua Bebee had a massive band backing up his original folk/ rock songs. The band featured drummer Devin Gergel, keyboardist/vocalist Leif Sturmanis Nordholm, clarinetist Tyler Vanden Dool, bassist Dino Scavo, flautist/vocalist Beth Wilson, lead guitarist Barry Livingstone and vibraphone player Brian Cole.
Joshua Beebe played ukulele, guitar and sang a psychedelic set of jazz tinged experimental jam band based, mostly original music with a few covers. They laid down a laid back, hypnotic layer of multi-instrumentalist sounds, which were groovy and enjoyable but slowly picked up the pace.
Rondel Roberts, with a front row seat, started a spurt of manic dancing to a more up tempo number as a few more people joined the fun.
They took a more serious note with a more spirited, impassioned number about the B.C wildfires.
Beebe played ukulele and guitar. His tenor voice was reminiscent of Tyler Childers and our own Steve Foord.
He showed his country roots with an energetic version of Hank Williams’ “ I Saw the Light to end their set
Surprise guests Harpoonist and the Satellite set up for their set close to midnight and tore things up with frenetic rhythms, playing a similar set to their Coulee Blues Festival set including Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer’s “ Mama in the Bbackseat.”
But they expanded their set with some intense percussion fueled jams. Bradford Reed provided throbbing bass and drums on his home made pencilina, changing the note by altering the string length.
Theo Vincent’s hands were a blur on the djembe.
The fun really began after Rondell Roberts and his drummer joined them on stage for extra vocals and more hypnotic percussion, it was as if as if a folk fest drum circle was taking place on the Owl stage.
Roberts sang some reggae and impassioned R and B.
And the bands looked ready to play on until dawn.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor