A brisk fall night on Lark Street was warm and inviting at The Eleven, celebrating its grand opening with a fitting artist upstairs at Lark Hall, pianist Holly Bowling.
Much has changed in the past decade since Bowling began playing solo shows, having transcribed and performed Phish jams (not just songs, the improv sections too) and gave fresh takes on the catalog of the Grateful Dead, even having appearances with Phil Lesh as one of his friends.
Bowling now enters her second decade of live performances with an evolving solo career in the jam scene, having branched out into Ghost Light with Tom Hamilton and company, played regularly with Greensky Bluegrass, taken part in the immersive Musical Sojourns in Portugal this past October, and brought to life the ever unique Wilderness Series – performing at beautiful vistas within and around our National Park System.
The past decade has been a whirlwind of growth and opportunities, including giving birth to her and husband Jeffery’s first child. Holly Bowling has been about as busy as one can, and shares how she has worked towards finding balance with it all:
One thing I took away from the pandemic was a new acceptance of how to be creative in touring and that there’s a lot of different ways to play music for people. You have to do what makes sense for the situation you find yourself in at that particular time, whether it’s finding ways to create and play music when all the venues are shut down or finding ways to tour that make sense as a parent of a young child. I’m not sure I’d say I’ve figured out how to balance it all. I think finding balance of any kind is a challenge for most touring musicians. It’s a constantly evolving process, and I have to keep reminding myself to find ways to make it work for what my life is today and that what works today isn’t necessarily going to be what worked before or what’s going to work five years from now. And that’s fine – maybe even good.
Holly Bowling
On this evening, Bowling took the stage and performed as she always has, with focus and attention to detail, showing no signs of slowing down a well-paced musical career. Bowling last played Lark Hall with Ghost Light in October 2022, and sought out owner Jennifer Miller to plan a show in the future, with November 11th – 11/11 – being the best date for a show, adding in a nod to the Grateful Dead in the process.
With tube lighting on either side of the stage, a mirror ball above and four colored spots shining down and moving slowly along with the tempo, the stage was set, a grand piano and bench awaiting Bowling.
The first set featured the entire “Terrapin Station” suite, broken up into two sections, opening up with the first half of the song, “Lady with a Fan” and “Terrapin Station,” deep and layered, neatly falling into Phish’s “Fast Enough For You,” with the addition of looping to give the Rift track a new twist. 30 minutes later, the audience offered rousing applause.
With the use of effects pedals processing the piano sound, Bowling illuminated the improvisation jam that led from “About to Run”, and found its way into the rest of the “Terrapin Station” suite, “At a Siding” and “Terrapin Flyer,” finally ending the set with an ever-gorgeous “Divided Sky.” The emergence of a greater scope of sounds from the piano – whether it be with mallets, e-bows, fishing line or pedals – adds depth to the music. Said Bowling, “The piano has always been the instrument that can be closest to a full orchestra and I just want to play with as many sounds as possible.”
The second set opened with a heavy “St. Stephen” where Bowling explored the most familiar parts of the song using a tribal synth sound via manipulation of the inner piano strings, creating a hypnotic trance (accentuated briefly by a police siren wailing down the street.) “William Tell Bridge” developed out of this trance, Bowling playing the inner strings again, the pair of songs harkening the call of “The Eleven,” which would show up promptly at 10:11 (that’s 11:11 without DST). A song very rarely played by Bowling, “The Eleven” gave way to Phish’s “If I Could,” an emotional composition in its own right, and with light internal plucking and looping, Bowling summoned the intro of “Theme From the Bottom,” which took deep turns and twists, eventually fading into “Morning Dew” to close the set.
“Waste” would fall into the encore slot, with Bowling greeting and talking to fans after the show, everyone filing downstairs through The Eleven where Quantum Cosmic Trio continued on with the celebration of a grand opening, a grand performance and a grand pianist.
Holly Bowling – Lark Hall, Albany – Saturday, November 11, 2023
Set 1: Terrapin Station Suite -> Fast Enough For You, About to Run -> Terrapin Station Suite -> Divided Sky
Set 2: St. Stephen -> William Tell Bridge -> The Eleven -> If I Could, Theme from the Bottom -> Morning Dew
Encore: Waste
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