Talk about two good things coming together. New England Music Award winners Gretchen & The Pickpockets took their particular R&B sound to the hugely popular artsy hangout known as Gulu Gulu Café in Salem, Massachusetts last Saturday night. Amid the venues artwork decorated walls and coffee and beer tasting clientele, this New Hampshire band offered a presentation as classy as their surroundings and patrons.
For three hours Gretchen & The Pickpockets treated the Gulu Gulu Café audience to their engaging originals and their unique arrangements of songs by other artists. The band’s two most notable features are lead vocalist Gretchen Klempa and trumpet player Ryan O’Connell. The two had audience members enrapt with the lilting vocal melody lines and the sublime to vibrant beauty of that horn. It was intriguing how the voice and the trumpet along with the rest of the band could build suspense and tension in each song by shifting dynamics.
“No Good,” off the band’s full length CD, began as a tasteful cocktail lounge tune before Ms. Klempa sustained, finessed, and caressed her lyrics, slathering them with her sultry, rangy vocal approach. Meanwhile, O’Connell’s trumpet melody added a touch of foreign intrigue with its unusual timbre and its interval of seductive notes.
A cover of David Bowie’s “It Ain’t Easy” showed that even in a live setting, Gretchen & The Pickpockets could create moods, atmospheres with their techniques. Ms. Klempa often lulled listeners into a comfort zone with her quieter presentations, letting that trumpet man tap out a beauteous low key melody line. Then, this singer would swiftly regain control of the song, suddenly shifting her dynamics at the microphone, always adding another layer of intrigue and power. (Are there any label executives or A&R people reading this?)
Their original “Old Souls” was marked by pretty vocal harmonies, mood evoking guitar flourishes, and an easily detectable pulse coming from the drum set. Klempa’s voice graced the low key melodic backdrop, letting her voice sink down into a lower range, full of feeling, filling in the song with plenty of color. For other songs, Ms Klempa could make a song sadder with carefully placed pauses, letting the trumpet fill the space with a melancholy glide of its own.
The band started their second set with a reasonably good cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Beast Of Burden” before they turned heads with their new song “Get The Rock.” Twists and turns in the melodies, pivotal dynamic shifts, all within a tightly self-contained tune kept it real.
Interestingly, enough, the band went into an especially good cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary.” Ms. Klempa’s breezy interpretation of the vocal melody line and O’Connell’s trumpet take on its rising melodic drift were amazing. Guitarist Ritchie Smith played a groove laden phrase that he danced around the meter like nobody’s business. Mike Klempa’s bass too made the most of this clever arrangement.
“Don’t Let Go” also off of the band’s full length, found them playing in an old time, 1920s vibe, with jazzy influences, hip. It swung, skipped, jumped and really came alive on the strength of their tight ensemble playing. Fleetwood Mac’s “Gold Dust Woman” got a sincere treatment, courtesy of some tense guitar phrasing and Ms. Klempa’s emotive delivery.
Their newer song “Sweet Sweet Love” was a treat for the ears as was their song “Satisfied,” a swaying trumpet coolness, hip cooing from the background singers, and Ms. Klempa’s rising dynamics at the microphone, all of it filled the song with vibrant life.
After some juicy sweet covers of Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass,” Van Morrison’s “Domino,” and Ray Charles’s “I’ve Got A Woman,” the band went into their original “Confident.” A thumpy groove and bracing rhythm guitar line carried it well to the end.
Drummer Tom O’Connell, who all night long had carried the band through a variety of originals and original arrangements, proved his metal again with a close out cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” a song with rocking, grooving beats.
Last Saturday’s Gulu Gulu Café show displayed what Gretchen & The Pickpockets can do: successfully recreate in a live setting the magic they have put down in the studio. (Again, are their any A&R people reading this? How about some festival organizers? One of them is in graduate school at the University of New Hampshire and the rest of them are graduating from UNH’s undergrad school in a few weeks. Yes, they’re still young enough to be signed to a major label.)
On another positive note, the band are not really pickpockets so you won’t have to keep your hand on your wallet or pocketbooks all night. If you live in the north shore area, you also want to check out Gulu Gulu Café on Essex Street in Salem, Massachusetts. The spacious room let the music breathe and travel to all sides and the menu and beer selection is outstanding.
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