Karen Ponzio
Robyn Hitchcock.
Right before concluding her opening set, Lys Guillorn said to the audience, “How crazy is it to be seeing Robyn Hitchcock in middle of the afternoon?” Crazy, maybe, but also maybe not.
Since 2016 Cafe Nine has been the home of the weekly Sunday Buzz series, presented by CygnusRadio.com, a local “old school free form” internet radio station. Station co-owner and musician Frank Critelli hosts the Buzz each week at the Nine. The show begins at 4 p.m. and “gets you home in time for dinner,” as he is often heard telling the audience. Shows have included both local and national acts from varied musical backgrounds, keeping in theme with not only Cafe Nine’s reputation as the musicians’ living room, but with Cygnus playlists (in full disclosure, this reporter has a show on Cygnus). Today’s show included the New Haven-based Guillorn — opening solo for the internationally known Robyn Hitchcock, revered since the 1970s for both his solo work and his work with The Soft Boys.
Karen Ponzio
Lys Guillorn.
Guillorn is no stranger to the Cafe Nine stage, though she came to the show out of a self-imposed two-month winter hiatus from performing that “allowed me to hear myself think,” she said.
Her last recording had been a split single released in October 2017 with local group No Line North. It included her song “How To Make a Mountain,” recorded with her band (aptly known as Lys Guillorn and Her Band). Not one to rest for too long, Guillorn has plans to release a song as part of the ARK/\HIVE exhibit at the Institute Library in New Haven on March 8, as well as writing a song with singer/songwriter Julie Beman (who is also a part of Her Band). She also noted that this year she may play fewer shows farther in between because she wants to “write and present the best stuff possible,” also noting that recently her songwriting had become more environmentally influenced and that she may also want to explore her “role in nature.”
“Or I can just have some good dreams,” she said with a laugh. “I have wacky dreams all the time.”
She also used the word “dreamy” to describe the work of Robyn Hitchcock, who she has been a fan of since high school. “My hope is to be as free as I am in my own self as he is, as mentally free to compose whatever my mind can come up with. That’s why he is inspiring. He is also not afraid to be funny. He is an astute observer of the world and how odd it is to be here and all and I can appreciate that.”
Guillorn took to the stage with her guitar and her own set of smart and dreamy tunes that drew the sold-out capacity crowd close to the stage to pay attention and take it all in. The nine-song set included the aforementioned “How To Make a Mountain,” originally recorded with Guillorn on banjo but here played on guitar. She also played selections from her last two EPs, I’m A Boy and Sunny Side Down. With music that makes you want to move along and lyrics that make you want to stop and hear the rest of the story, Guillorn melded the best parts of alt-folk and rock into her own genre, tipping its hat to acts such as Hitchcock as well as Gillian Welch, but also adding a personal touch that connects, making you say ahhh yes, that’s it, they feel it too. The audience responded loudly and often with appreciation for Guillorn, setting the tone for the rest of the show with Hitchcock.
Robyn Hitchcock came to the stage with his guitar, his catalogue of older and newer material, as well as his witty and thoughtful banter. He completely mesmerized the crowd. From the first notes of “The Abyss” to the last notes of “Mad Shelley’s Letterbox” and throughout all 13 songs in between (and into two encore tunes), Hitchcock proved why he has endured and why it was easy for him to keep the audience enraptured by his storytelling and lilting folky rock sound. He made the crowd laugh often, making comments about his hair and his shirt, kindly asking for assistance from sound engineer Garrett Kuppelmeyer to make him “sound like a double track George Harrison” or to give him “rock and roll vocals as if the sound was fun,” even mentioning as he talked about modern music and times that “hey, Jim Morrison was right, but he’s dead.”
He even joked about the time of day, thanking the audience for “coming out and listening to fairly quiet rock music in the daylight.” Song after song of lyrically intricate tunes that many sang along to made the set seem shorter than it was, mostly because it was so compelling that one could readily have stayed for another full set. One of the beauties of Cafe Nine is the ease with which many artists unfold themselves to the audience as if they were all close friends. It was not hard to imagine sitting with Hitchcock at the bar afterward and listening to more of his thoughts and stories — and in fact, he spent a good amount of time after the show talking to his fans, signing records and taking pictures with them.
As Hitchcock sang the lyrics “be still, be still, let the darkness fall upon you,” from his penultimate song of the set, “Be Still,” darkness fell upon New Haven. After he thanked the crowd again, as well as Guillorn and Kuppelmeyer, he also lovingly thanked Cafe Nine for “fitting me in and making room for me on a Sunday. If nothing else we have stayed here peaceably and brought the night down together.”
And most of us were home in time for dinner.
Robyn Hitchcock continues his tour including a stop back in CT at the Fairfield Theater Company on April 8. Find more info here. The ARK/\HIVE exhibit that Lys Guillorn is participating in opens on March 8th at The Institute Library. More info can be found here. The Sunday Buzz happens every Sunday at Cafe Nine. More info can be found here. CygnusRadio.com is on 24/7 and can be heard here.
