Nathaniel Rateliff revelling in unexpected joys of the road
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/07/2022 (1535 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats arrive in Winnipeg fresh from an enviable musical experience.
The Denver singer-songwriter and his band performed at the Newport Folk Festival last Sunday and welcomed legendary singer-songwriter Paul Simon to the stage in the middle of their set of covers of Simon and Garfunkel classics and solo material.
It was a notable event — it’s difficult to believe Sunday was Simon’s first appearance at the famous festival — even if it was rightly overshadowed by Joni Mitchell’s performance the same day, her first in public since suffering a brain aneurysm and undergoing surgery in 2015.
“It’s hard to put into words the joy we felt bringing the great American songwriter Paul Simon to the Newport folk stage,” Rateliff said after backing Simon, 80, on a rendition of Graceland, The Boxer and other classic tunes. “Thank you, Paul, for your songs, your voice and your presence.”
While Friday’s concert at the Burton Cummings Theatre might not match performing with a rock legend for Rateliff and company, it remains a much-anticipated show for Rateliff’s fans in and around Winnipeg, who last saw the group here in 2016.
Rateliff and the Night Sweats released their third album, The Future, last November, and recording it proved to be a catharsis from the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, Rateliff, 43, said in an interview in Forbes magazine.
“Well, everything looked pretty bleak at the time. I try to write from a kind of observing the bleakness perspective while trying to have some hope in there,” Rateliff said in the interview with Jim Ryan. “The thread through the songs is certainly kind of looking at what our future is. So that’s definitely what I was writing about and thinking about — and, at times, thinking about the potential of our future being not a very good one.
“And sometimes it still feels that way. I don’t feel like we’ve really made it out of any of the issues we were dealing with in 2020.”
Songs titles such as Face Down in the Moment and Something Ain’t Right suggest difficulty coping with troubled times, the album’s emotional title track that begins the LP prepares for troubled times ahead.
“You’re standing in the water / You think that you’ve been saved / With your blind ignorance / In comes a crashing wave / Let’s see what drowned men do, in your watery grave,” Rateliff sings, accompanied by the seven-piece Night Sweats.
Rateliff released a solo record, And It’s Still Alright, in February 2020, one of countless albums that were victims of bad timing, owing to the pandemic.
There were an endless array of livestream performances during the summer of 2020, but Rateliff took the format to an extreme in September of that year, performing 10 livestreamed concerts at an almost vacant Red Rocks venue in Colorado, which has room for about 10,000 people.
So don’t expect Rateliff and the Night Sweats to take Friday’s show for granted.
“But just to be back out on the road I think was amazing for us as a band. We’re a live band. And I think people come to see us and know us because of that. And we try to have fun,” Rateliff told Forbes.
“It also felt like, from the stage, seeing the audience reaction (on the livestreams), that people really need to have that interaction that we have when we play live shows.”
Friday’s opener is the Deep Dark Woods, a folk group from Saskatoon that has won two Canadian Folk Music Awards since forming in 2009.
Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com
Twitter: @AlanDSmall
Alan Small
Reporter
Alan Small was a journalist at the Free Press for more than 22 years in a variety of roles, the last being a reporter in the Arts and Life section.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats● Friday, 8 p.m.
● Burton Cummings Theatre
● Tickets: $53.50-$65.25, including fees, at ticketmaster.ca
• A new single and an announcement of CD launch parties in September are the latest signs that a new JP Hoe album is just around the corner.
The Winnipeg singer-songwriter released the song Say What You Want to Say to streaming services last week, from the upcoming LP Botanicals, which will be feted at Sept 16 at the Park Theatre ($37.46 plus fees at myparktheatre.com) and Sept. 17 at a secret Manitoba location, with a bus filled with fans departing from Winnipeg at 4 p.m. Sept. 17.
• Similar news from city metal group KEN Mode, which has released two singles, A Love Letter and But They Respect My Tactics, from an upcoming album coming out in September. The band has set a Sept. 23 date at the Good Will Social Club.
• Jazz Winnipeg’s Jazz at the Dalnavert Museum series — outdoor shows begun in 2020 as a pandemic pivot — returns in August with four Sunday-afternoon concerts at the historic house at 61 Carlton St.
Winnipeg-based Argentine singer-guitarist Onna Lou begins the series Aug. 7, followed by city trumpeter Andrew Littleford (Aug.14); soul and R&B vocalist Joe Curtis (Aug. 21) and singer-songwriter Doug Edmond (Aug. 28).
Tickets are $25 and are available at jazzwinnipeg.com.
• Local metal group Vagina Witchcraft, which rose to prominence in 2021 by landing a spot on the Polaris Music Prize longlist, has broken up, according to the band’s Facebook page.
The group, Kayla Fernandes, Dylan Sellar, Seppel Saünlust and Julien Riel, partnered a ferocious sound with a focus on inclusiveness for BIPOC and LGBTTQ+ fans in Canada and Europe since 2019.
“Truly, thank you for giving us a chance to play music, and thank you for listening, and for validating the experiences tragedy, and redemption that came with it,” the band’s Facebook post says.
Alan Small
Reporter
Alan Small was a journalist at the Free Press for more than 22 years in a variety of roles, the last being a reporter in the Arts and Life section.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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