The Kennedys ~ 2025 April 5 ~ Circle of Friends Coffeehouse, Franklin, MA Maura Kennedy, vocals and guitar; Pete Kennedy, vocals, guitar, and ukulele. Set List New Set Of Wheels - Chimes of Freedom (Bob Dylan) - The Woods and the Wild - Gulf Coast Highway (Nanci Griffith) - Get It Right - Late September Breeze - Half a Million Miles - The Boy From the East River Shore - Midnight Ghost ... intermission ... Boddhisatva Blues - Happy Again - Rhapsody In Blue - Long Ago and Far Away (Bob Dylan, sung by Odetta) - Safe Until Tomorrow - Like An Angel (new song) - Matty Groves ... encore ... Stand Scroll to below videos for a review of the show. Videos Half a Million Miles Matty Groves Review Maura and Pete put on an exceptionally good show at this venerable coffeehouse in southeastern Massachusetts on a rainy night. Highlights were many. Pete played four instruments: his Rickenbacker; his ukulele; a guitar with red sparkles; and a red and white guitar that has a detachable neck making it useful as a travel guitar. There were a good number of uptempo songs. There was a cover of a seldom heard soulful Dylan number ("Long Ago and Far Away") known primarily from its performance by Odetta. There were a couple of relatively deep Kennedys cuts ("Happy Again," "Get It Right," "New Set Of Wheels"). Although advertised as a career retrospective with songs from all 17 Kennedys albums, that format immediately met its doom as soon as Pete started soliciting requests from the audience. Looking out into the audience and seeing mostly familiar faces in the almost sold out room, Maura and Pete realized they didn't have to sell themselves to this crowd. I'd say the highlight of the evening was a new song, "Like An Angel," a song written from a dream, as some of Maura's songs are, but this one is about writing songs from dreams, and to top it off it's a singalong! The absence of an opening act enabled Maura and Pete to perform a good long show featuring a generous helping of both new and old songs as well as a good deal of stylistic variety. The Circle of Friends Coffeehouse is housed in the First Universalist Society meetinghouse. Aren't all the best folk venues in Unitarian meetinghouses? It's not much to look at from the outside, although once inside they have a whimsical tapestry depicting all of the "friends" making up the "circle" that adorns an entire wall of the lobby. The info supplied about when the doors open is a bit vague. The outside doors to the building are generally open, but the doors to the performance room open at the time stated in the concert listing (in this case, 7 pm), so go inside as soon as you get there, get a cookie, and get in line. The seats are arranged in front of the stage in an arc. I've only been here a couple of times before, but it's the kind of place that focuses on booking seriously good performers and only has one show a month. It's a bit of a legendary place on the folk circuit and well worth signing up for their mailing list. More Kennedys Here is a page with a handy list of links to all pages on this website with content relating to Pete and Maura.
Maura and Pete Kennedy
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