Brian Slattery Photo
Rachel Sumner flashed a broad smile from the Cafe Nine stage. “I’m so excited that we get to have the show that wasn’t,” she said to the full house that had come to hear her, a Boston-based musician, perform, with New Haven-based acts Mercy Choir and Lys Guillorn supporting. The show had been originally scheduled at Cafe Nine for April 2020. On Saturday night, it happened at last.
The show opened with a set from Paul Belbusti, a.k.a. Mercy Choir, performing solo with electric guitar. “Let’s hear it for Cafe Nine,” he said, referring to its long-running status as the musicians’ living room. “I’ve been playing here since I was a young lad.” He moved fast through a series of songs from the newer half of his catalog, elliptical songs full of humor and yearning, receiving hearty applause at the end of each number. He and Guillorn managed a seamless segue from one set to the other by performing a few songs together, including from their 2013 collaborative project Trouble. Their instruments and voices meshed as well as ever.
For her own set, In 30 seconds, explaining the long road from the show’s original cancelled date to now, Lys Guillorn took the audience through the past year and a half — how in April 2020 the three acts had quickly figured out how to do a livestreamed show (”>read the Independent’s April 2020 article about that; note the lack of the word “livestream”). She talked about the learning curve of figuring out technical difficulties, of getting better at performing from one’s home, and then at last being able to go out again. “We’re here,” she said, to a round of applause.
“Do you want to hear a new song or a really new song?” she asked, adding an expletive. The audience chose the latter. As she tuned up, she joked, “my two stage fears are cotton mouth and potty mouth.” Her songs did most of the talking, though — especially two pandemic songs, including “Dolores and I,” which appeared on the first Free as Birds compilation Waiting on a Sunrise in May 2020. Sharply observed and full of heart, Guillorn’s songs connected easily with an eager audience.
Rachel Sumner took the stage with a full band — Ira Klein on guitar, Mike Siegel on upright bass, and Kat Wallace (of Wallace and Sasso) on fiddle and harmonies — ready with a full hand of originals and a few choice covers that ranged from uptempo, feel-good songs to deeply contemplative material. She sang one song about her mother, explaining that she has a very close relationship with her and just recently got to fly to California to visit her, “which is why I can sing this song without crying,” she said. The song got an extra boost of supportive cheers.
Another song was about the Radium Girls, factory workers who painted the faces of watches with radium initially so soldiers in World War I could see what time it was at night; they were told radium was safe to work with and succumbed to radiation poisoning — though not before starting a long legal battle that led to a series of reforms and paved the way for the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “I didn’t know about it until a couple years ago and it shocked me,” Sumner said. “So I decided to tell as many people as possible.” The song that followed was haunting and sad, a proper vessel for a difficult truth.
Throughout, Siegel held down the rhythm with Sumner on guitar, while Klein created texture and provided choice solos, and Wallace fleshed out the band’s sound with filigreed lines, strong harmonies, and acrobatic leads. Sumner radiated happiness from the stage, expressing how glad she was to be performing again and thanking the audience for coming out to see her. The applause at the end of the set sounded like it really had been a year and half in coming.
