Always an enjoyable part of the annual Allentown Arts Festival weekend in Buffalo, and now way better than the virtual arts and crafts festival the arts festival now seems like to many of us, Nietzsche’s once again held its two-day Allentown Music Festival.
With the Music Is Art Festival running directly opposite it (and Val and I covering that event plus Val exhibiting her photography at it – see story/review elsewhere), we missed most of it, but we did make time to catch another returning hero of sorts, Michael Oliver, with his “new” band, the Jaunty Lads.
Known for his often 1960s and 1970s pop rock flavored songs, Oliver and band opened with “There Goes My Heart Again” from his second CD, “Pop and Circumstances,” called the Buffalo/Western New York CD of the year by many writers when it came out, including me. This was followed by “I’ve Got a Secret” and “Father’s Day in New York City,” both also from “Pop and Circumstances.” Despite the musicians living in different cities limiting the rehearsal time, the songs were bouncy and fun but still pretty tight sounding; the band, particularly Swain and Lynne, appeared to be having great times on stage.
The band then went back to the Go, Dog! Go vault for some classics, including “At Any Given Moment” and, by request, “Grace,” both from his debut “How Does This Work?” CD. The latter song, an ode to a friend who spends much of her time working to help other people and maybe disregarding her own welfare, got a smartly stark treatment of Oliver on guitar and vocals and Brown on lightly played cymbals and drums.
To end their set in a possible coincidence (even the better bands who attracted more people, such as Oliver and the Jaunty Lads, are limited to shorter than normal sets), the band launched into a very upbeat, rocking version of “I’m Ready Now” (to move on, as the lyrics note, “now that I’m over you”), the opener from his debut, and “Anyone But You,” a Badfinger like pop rocker with a chunky guitar riff, the opener from his second CD.
I did have the misfortune to catch most of the set of Tom Stahl and his band (the Slaphappy Lads? The Overrated Lads?), who played before Oliver. Stahl is not only possibly the most nasal singer I have ever heard (coming from Buffalo/Western New York, this is an accomplishment, and this comes from an overly nasal person like me who can’t stand to listen to his radio air checks for this reason), but I have referred to him in print as a Michael Oliver wannabe who simply doesn’t have the singing, songwriting or other talents. The songs I was subjected to here accurately reflected my previous opinions, which include a CD review I wrote for another publication years ago that was not printed because it was considered too negative by some upper-ups.
