Chris and Meredith Thompson ~ 2026 October 17 ~ Stone Church Coffeehouse ~ Bristol, RI
Personnel: Meredith Thompson (vocals, bongos, flute, poetry reading); Chris Thompson(vocals, guitar).
Video
Lines of Longitude
Review
Chris and Meredith Thompson are twin sisters originally from the Boston area. I had just seen them a few weeks ago singing backup with The Kennedys at the show at the Burren. Some years ago they were in Pete and Maura's band The Strangelings, a roots rock, trad folk combo that Pete and Maura still frequently revisit in their set lists to this day. So we thought we'd check out this dynamic twin sister act, and boy were they good. Chris is the one on the right in the pictures, with the spangly shirt. They sometimes write together, sometimes individually, sometimes Meredith will write the lyrics and Chris the music. They more or less took turns introducing the songs, with sometimes humorous and sometimes poignant stories. They also more or less took turns singing lead. Their songs were mostly originals. Meredith plays bongos (two of them, one a tone lower than the other) and flute, and Chris plays guitar. Their voices are very much alike, as are their senses of humor.
They obviously love performing and had fun talking about the silly questions they get ("are you twins?" "are you sisters?" -- I wish I had thought of asking "which one of you is older?"). Meredith also sometimes writes poetry that doesn't turn into songs, and treated the audience to a reading of two poems in between songs. A very enjoyable evening of music at a coffeehouse celebrating 20 years of presenting folk music.Bristol's Stone Church Coffeehouse in Bristol, RI is easy to find with plentiful nearby on-street parking. They take reservations and then ask you to pay with cash or a check at the door. The reserved table set up is a little confusing, since the big table in the center had a reserved sign on it, but I think in fact they were only reserving two spaces for a wheelchair patron and one companion. No matter, where we wound up at a table off to the side was perfect for both sound and picture taking. We've seen The Kennedys here in the past and with their excellent line-up of folk music it's likely we'll be visiting them again in the future.