Just saw Jorma, Jack, and Barry Mitterwald with my son at the Cedar Cultural Center in Mpls. last night. Incredible! Had tickets to the 5:00 PM show which was fantastic, especially the tasteful work of Barry on assorted mandolins and a tenor guitar. Jorma was his old, irascible self, Barry displayed the most deadpan sense of humor, and Jack...well Jack made faces in addition to contributing some incredible bass licks.
When they announced near the end of the continuous 2-hours of acoustic blues and bluegrass that they would be playing entirely different material for the 9 PM show, we purchased tickets on our way out, grabbed a bite to eat, and then were treated to another 2-plus hours of great music.
The Cedar is small, non-profit venue (we are talking a couple hundred of seats here since its an old movie theater) with great acoustics. We were not frisked at the door, no one asked to inspect our backpack, and refreshments were very reasonably priced. A few attendees even appeared to bring their own bottles of wine. Tickets to each show cost $30 and we were seated about 10 rows back dead center (there were probably only 15-20 rows of seats).
Music the way it's supposed to be.
