Photographs by Sarah Rix.
On an extremely cold evening the crowd at Lee’s Palace was more than ready for the main act to hit the stage after two opening acts. An unusually late start time of 11:30 PM meant people had lots of time to have some beers and get rowdy. Even though Twin Forks only have one album out they came with a built in audience as the lead singer and guitarist is Chris Carrabba frontman for the emo rock band Dashboard Confessional, and which most of the crowd was of the female persuasion. They band strode out and while the drummer and bassist convened at the back of the stage to play, Carrabba was flanked up front by two country belles. The band started out with Come On and the crowd started cheering and clapping right away managing to keep it up for most of the night. Even though the band is American and are based out of Nashville, when playing live, they have a bit of a similar sound to Great Big Sea, something that is not present on their recordings. The twang of the banjo and mandolin is just about the only reason why the band is folk and roots based. Carrabba’s singing and playing style is still very much rooted in rock, as was most evident when they played Hands Down a Dashboard song. When the banjo was not playing it sounded just like athe punk-pop song it originally was.
Throughout the show band members came and drifted from the music’s forefront. On Kiss Me Darling drummer (and cousin of Carrabba) Ben Homola really shined with some great cymbal fills. Homola’s playing was musically the highlight of the night. He has the steady talent of a real Nashville session pro. He seemed to change styles with ease and they were always played to perfection. The two girls and one guy harmonies were quite beautiful. The ladies had naturally higher pitched voices but Carrabba has a nice mid-range voice that blended nicely.
“I’m going to pinch myself! I can’t believe all you souls are here!” Carrabba shouted to the crowd. The band seemed to be so genuinely happy to be up on stag is was infectious. Between winking and laughing between band mates and smiling as happy concertgoers it was hard to fake the level of excitement they were exhibiting. They played several covers from an old Steve Earle song to the Violent Femmes and even a Talking Heads tune. The supplemented their short catalogue with some brand new songs that would most likely appear on their next record. Carrabba was the undisputed leader of the band as everyone else took their cues from him. His voice has lots of range but you can see how effortless it looks on him on the account that he has been playing with pop-centric bands since the early ’90s. When it was Carrabba’s time to solo or sing lead the rest of the band would retreat into the shadows of the stage to let him shine. It was clearly a respect thing, not that he is a bad person. He was quite affable with the crowd wishing some people Happy Birthday. “Tell your friends; ever heard of Twin Forks? They’re fucking awesome”.
They ended the set with one of the strongest songs on the album in Back To You. The band was solid, but it was unfortunate that it seemed like a date night for a lot of people in the crowd so during the quieter moments of the night you could easily hear idle chatter. After the band took their bows, a smattering of encore chants came from around the bar. Only Carrabba came back out and sang another Dashboard cover, mostly a Capella. The crowd seemed to know the lyrics to Remember To Breathe and the earlier Dashboard song better than the rest of them. It was a fun night but the crowd at times wasn’t always the most enjoyable to be around.
