Parker Millsap has earned a reputation as a priritually-minded, if not outright spiritual singer/songwriter. His new album Be Here Instead includes some curiously relevant messages consistent with the past couple of years of global pandemic and self reflection.
It's always fun to see Parker and it is always amazing to see him perform. His return to the Off Broadway stage in Saint Louis last night was no exception. You really feel the notion of be here instead (a kind of mindfulness). Now with new bandmates on keyboards and guitar and drums the sound is bigger. Some highlights for me: Parker showing his vocal range (again) with you got to be vulnerable; the band belting out the message It's in your eyes; the emphatic Other Arrangements; the power and almost psychodelic feeling of The Very Last Day; and a sweet dedication to "wife Meg" It was you.
“Stop looking ahead/be here instead/this is the prayer,” Millsap sings in the hypnotic album track “Now, Here,” a song he wrote before the pandemic. When he revisited the lyrics during pre-production for Be Here Instead, it revealed a new meaning. “Why is that jumping out at me?” Millsap says. “And then I realized, ‘Oh, quarantine!’ Be here instead — instead of going to work, instead of going on vacation, or whatever it was you’re going to do. You’re going to be here now for a while.
Violinist Dan Foulks spent a bit of pre show time with us outside the venue at the fire pit area in the cool air of the first days of Fall in our town. He admits that life on the road is a change from his more recent efforts at gentleman farmer in Tennessee. But he is also happy to revisit this part of his life and livelihood. Next stop: Louisville.
