Rebecca Gentile longing for those Country Roads.
Raffi, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and The Eagles filled the air at New Haven’s pin, patch, and oddities shop Strange Ways Saturday evening, but it wasn’t the sound system. Local band Typically Divergent was performing their annual Ecology and Neurodiversity concert, featuring covers of songs about loving and protecting our planet. Mellow voices sang familiar, folksy tunes, peppered here and there with clever ad-libs and harmonies.
The mostly-neurodivergent band consisted of musicians Rebecca Gentile, Donald “Dreams” Williams, Paul Harris, frontman Timothy Balser, and a couple others who couldn’t make it Saturday night. Everyone was on vocals, with guitar and keyboard backing from Harris, who also rocks the Connecticut music scene with his band Mushroom Cloud.
The band showed up in coordinated outfits: tropical shirts and nature patterns for Earth Day. Their last public show, in December, was a holiday-themed show where Gentile dressed up as a Christmas tree. You might think the other holidays represented in the show would be winter ones too, like Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, but you would be wrong. Balser was a turkey.
Near the end of the first half, members of the band took their time between songs to hand Gentile two small pastel-rainbow pillows from around Strange Ways’ studio. She placed them gently in front of her with no explanation. Then the band asked the crowd how they were feeling, and Gentile slowly collapsed onto the floor, right onto the two pillows in front of her.
The rest of the band raised no alarm, preparing for the next song with quiet remarks about how to wake her up.
“You know what else might work? Singing a song.”
“Maybe that’ll rouse her.”
“Let’s start off soft.”
Sure enough, a few lines into the song Gentile arose and started singing. The audience cheered. “She’s back!” the band exclaimed into their mics. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was all part of the show.
Balser, left, and Harris, right, crooning to the crowd.
From left to right: Williams, Gentile, and Balser, saving the Earth one tune at a time.
“This was my first time doing the faint,” Gentile told me at the band’s mid-show break. Balser had done it last time, she said. When I asked her why they incorporate this into their performance, she shrugged and talked about dreaming and the power of music to revive and awaken. This was when I realized, as a new fan of the band, I hadn’t yet come to expect their coordinated style of wit and stunts.
When the band dedicated a song to Mother Earth, they invited “all the moms” in the crowd to come up front. The mothers accepted the invite, some even singing along. And when the band performed John Denver’s 1971 hit “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” Gentile donned a tan cowboy hat.
Before the night came to a close, Earth herself stepped up to contribute a surprise. As the band prepared to sing Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” the already-drippy weather outside became a full downpour.
According to Balser, the band plays music to take action against negativity in the world, forming a positive beacon for each other and themselves. They have other responsibilities too — Harris has his other musical outfit, for example, and Balser is studying to become a teacher — so their band offers a way to diverge from the usual routines of life.
“We always do it for the love of the game,” Balser said, “The heart, the soul, the passion.”
Typically Divergent holds local concerts every two to three months. They are aiming to perform next in July.