The Kennedys with Quentin Callewaert opening ~ 2015 April 24 ~ Sandywoods Music ~ Tiverton, RI
Maura Kennedy, vocals, guitar; Pete Kennedy, guitar, vocals, ukulele; Quentin Callewaert, opening set on vocals and guitar
Set List
{MK} = from Maura's upcoming solo album; {PK} = from Pete's upcoming solo album. All other songs are from The Kennedys' new band album 'West' with the exception of the last two songs of the show. I'm not sure of some of Maura's song titles; corrections would be welcome.
West - Locket - Firefly {MK} - What We Have Known {MK} - Bodhisattva Blues - Dream Again {MK} - Southern Jumbo - Borrowed Dress {MK} - She Worked Her Magic on Me {MK} - Travel Day Blues ... intermission ... Queen of Hollywood High {written by John Stewart} - Signs - We All Need Someone {MK} - Williamsburg Bridge {PK} - Rhapsody in Blue {performed by Pete solo on ukulele} - Elegy - Coyote {MK} - Jubilee Time - Midnight Ghost ... encore ... When I Saw Her Standing There {Beatles, with Quentin}
Videos
Southern Jumbo
Williamsburg Bridge
Review
Off to this suberb folk venue in rural northeastern Rhode Island, where you can bring your own food and drink.
Pete and Maura Kennedy played a 20-song set almost exclusively consisting of new material, from their own band album West and from Maura's and Pete's upcoming solo albums. These three albums are being released almost concurrently to celebrate The Kennedys' twenty years in the music business. This can be a dangerous concert format if fans are expecting to hear old favorites. But the new songs are all, without an exception, very strong, and Pete and Maura performed them flawlessly. The audience received the new material with appreciation and a happy sense of being in on the start of something new.
A Kennedys show is always a lot of fun. Not only is Maura a fine vocalist, but her joyful enthusiasm about performing is captivating. Pete plays guitar as if it were an extension of his hands, sometimes barely brushing the strings to create beautiful sounds, sometimes tuning a string up and down in the middle of a song to create an effect, sometimes playing a solo that would do justice to a rock song. Although Pete isn't the strong vocalist that Maura is, his gentle voice (somewhat reminiscent of Steve Forbert) is just right for the thoughtful "Williamsburg Bridge," a song from his own upcoming solo album, and his voice blends sweetly with Maura's to create a beautiful harmony on many of their songs. Pete played a very pretty acoustic guitar that he has named Rescue Dog because he paid $80 for it, then put a lot more than that into it to fix it up, but has been told that it is worth several thousand dollars.
The show was opened by Quentin Callewaert, a 14 year old guitar phenom from Massachusetts who played several well-known popular songs. His playing was superb, his singing was very good, and he showed a good deal of poise on stage. When he accidentally started a song with a wrong lyric, he just played his guitar until he was back at the vocal start and started over with the correct lyric. We've seen adult performers who weren't so smooth correcting a mistake. He had a confident and upbeat stage personality, told stories, and The Kennedys called him up to help with their encore, a perky performance of a quickly chosen Beatles tune.
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