photo- Chadwick Gantes
Last night was something really special. Kenny, Alex and I joined all of our friends up the street at the Habitat House and welcomed our friend Mike Fiore of Faces on Film to perform a set up in Zack’s attic. Mike has been one of our favorite artists for sometime now, frontman of the Boston-based band, we were really excited to see him perform a solo set. Crowds of people began climbing one-by-one up to the attic and spilled towards the front, sitting on bean bags and futons scattered along wooden floor boards.
There were triangles set up along the front, backlit by bright lights creating shapes on the wall, contrasted against shapes and images moving from a film projector playing in the background. Mike played to a silent room, everyone, completely enamored and attentive to what was happening at the front. He began with Harlem Rose, a song from his new record Some Weather- and followed with handfuls of covers by artists like Townes Van Zandt and Clinic. He acknowledged, in brief breaks in songs, that it was difficult to sit around and listen to the same songs, or rather, a string of slow-moving acoustic songs and thanked everyone for keeping with him. The crowd responded with encouraging applause and polite whistles, even a dude who cut the silence to say, “you’re killing it”.
Habitat House shows are growing legs, they’re fostering communities, they’re making nights like last night happen, and I’m so grateful and honored to have been apart of putting this particular show together.
Afterwards, friends and strangers talked about what had just happened like it was their secret, alone. Something really unique that is otherwise unrepeatable. We all got Mexican food afterwards to see our good friends Cameron Woodward and Brandon Tauszik on their way up to San Francisco, leaving the Invisible Children family yet always apart of it.
If you haven’t heard of Faces on Film, you absolutely must check them out- visit their bandcamp HERE. And their collection of covers HERE.
