Every year in Burlington for a whole week there is a Discover Jazz Festival on Church Street. Church Street is a a long walking street in downtown Burlington with tons of shops, restaurants, and on the weekends (mostly) street performers. At one end of the street there's a Church, hence the name. It's where everyone goes when they visit Burlington and a great place for people watching. There are always people of all sorts there, seriously it can be quite entertaining. Anyway, they have mostly tons of different local bands play here and there on stages in front of shops or in restaurants and it's all free.
We hadn't really attended much of it in the past, but Greg got wind of a surprise free concert one of the nights from Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. I know, most of you, if not all of you, are saying, who??? We didn't know her either, but were told we had to go! Most of the band members (including Grace) were born and raised in Vermont so people know them here more than most places, but they've been getting bigger and bigger. They apparently made their first breakout onto TV over a year ago on The Jay Leno show and have recently been on Ellen as well. They just came out with their 3rd album, which we just bought and it's really good! The album is currently number 19 on the Billboards Top 200 and the Rolling Stone magazine put her as the Best New Act of 2010.
So off we went to check it out, you know, see what all the fuss was about. For a somewhat surprise concert, there were tons of people!
People as far as the eyes and the camera could see!
She jumped, danced, screamed, whooped, hollered and just had fun the whole time! The concert was about an hour and a half! That has to be quite the workout!
They were dressed pretty schnazzy don't ya think?
What I couldn't believe and am still having trouble believing even though I looked it up when I got home, is that Grace Potter just turned 27! She did not look it to me at all! I would have guessed somewhere in her 30's, like 35. They've been putting on concerts every year in Burlington for the past 5 years, apparently. Finally making there break, I think.
Looks like a Cool Dude, no?
Grace plays 5 different instruments! (3 are piano or piano-like and 2 are guitars, but still)
Here's a video of them playing most of one of their songs at the concert. Greg wishes to add a disclaimer that the camera is pretty small, the size of his palm, and he had to hold it over his head, so don't judge the camera skills too much!They play a jazz/rock type of music. She sometimes does extra little screams and noises, which I don't especially care for, but despite that, we think they're really good! She definitely seemed to have a blast up there on the stage and she apparently frequently wears really short skirts which many of the crowd didn't seem to mind at all.
If you want to hear some of their ther songs you can check out their website at http://www.gracepotter.com/. They're single is called Tiny Light, it gets played on the radio sometimes.
Check it out!!
