Last night’s Low show at the Creative Alliance sold out–there was even a waiting list, on a Tuesday. Men and women of a certain age sat sleepily with plastic cups of beer in hand, grooving in their seats to the dream pop opulence of the band’s tunes both new and old. Like my husband and me, these Baltimoreans had left the children–and/or cats and dogs–behind for a special concert experience, the kind they probably used to seek out on a nearly weekly basis. Of course, there were cool millennials in the know in attendance as well, but overwhelmingly I found the scene to be a kind of Gen-X homecoming, a night for the kindred former kids who started loving Low back in 1993, the year the Duluth, MN, group came to be. With Steve Garrington on bass, husband and wife duo Alan Sparhawk (guitar and vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums and vocal) proved they can still harmonize like angelic choir boys.
My favorite part of the soothing show? As much as I love their sound–and liked their new offerings–it’s a toss up between Parker’s surprise performance of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” and the moment she waggled her eyebrows at her husband to let him know that his momentary confusion over which song they were about to start didn’t matter, not a bit. Props to Josh Kohn, CA performance director, for bringing ever edgier, more interesting acts to the space.
