Lake Street Dive must have been one helluva bar band. Four players from different parts of the United States came together as students/jazz buffs at New England Conservatory in Boston in 2004. They mixed multiple music genres into a yummy concoction of sound to become what upright bassist Bridget Kearney once called a “free country” band.
“We intended to play country music in an improvised, avant-garde style — like Loretta Lynn meets Ornette Coleman,” she stated in a 2014 press release. “It sounded terrible! But the combination of people and personalities actually made a lot of sense, and we had a great time being around each other and making music together.”
Any of the few dedicated souls lucky enough to see that initial formation must be saying now, “I told you so!” Though Iowa native Kearney and two of her three co-founding members—Australia-born/Tennessee-raised lead vocalist/frontwoman Rachael Price and Philadelphia-area drummer Mike Calabrese—remain invaluable cogs in the machine after 20 years, things have changed dramatically since then for Lake Street Dive.
How could it be described any other way for a band that borrowed part of their name from a dive bar/bowling alley on Lake Street in Minneapolis? Now a sophisticated, polished gem of a quintet that just a month ago released their eighth full-length studio album, this rejuvenated Dive Five ended up headlining with superb support from the Colorado Symphony on a perfect summer night at Red Rocks Amphitheatre west of Denver.
After six previous appearances at Red Rocks—including three times as a warmup act and first opening for Grace Potter & the Nocturnals on 20 September 2014—they officially became headliners there four years later. Yet the latest stop (on 21 July) at Colorado’s premier outdoor venue might have been this classy act’s peak performance. An overflowing crowd of more than 9,500 was there to witness the ritzy occasion in a striking setting filled with glammed-up players dressed to thrill.
In a shimmering metallic silver gown at front and center, Price displayed an enchanting presence and stunning alto while roaming — and owning — a crowded stage. Kearney, whom Price called “one of the best songwriters alive today”, and Calabrese were stationed at stage left. Two recent core additions — Akie Bermiss (keyboards) in 2017 and guitarist James Cornelison (a blues aficionado who grew up in Chicago) in 2021 — manned positions on the opposite side. Also providing impressive assists were the Huntertones horn section (Chris Ott, Dan White, and Jon Lampley) and percussionist Nêgah Santos.
Time for a Change
All were featured in an expansive 26-song set that included all but one of the 11 selections from Good Together, the hearty party-down record that was released on 21 June via Fantasy Records. Lake Street Dive also made sure to please longtime fans with blasts from the past. Among them were “Stop Your Crying” (enraptured by sweet 1960s girl-group vocals), “Side Pony” (after previously banning it from the setlist), and “You Go Down Smooth”, the announced title actually eliciting squeals of delight before it was performed.
Though it wasn’t stated as such, the latter cut just before three encores could have been a tribute to Mike “McDuck” Olson, a founding father who often was called the heart of the band. The Minnesotan wrote that track first released on 2011’s Live at the Lizard Lounge and gets credit for assembling the original ensemble in a practice room on the Boston campus in May 2004.
“Mike Olson has a lot of grand vision,” Price told me during our first phone interview in February 2014 that served as my introduction to them, ten years after the group was born. The article that month for the Huffington Post was one of many to prepare unaware folks for Lake Street Dive’s breakthrough year. Accelerating their career was the 18 February release of their fourth studio album, Bad Self Portraits, their first LP to move into Billboard’s top five rock listings.
“We weren’t even friends with each other (during that 2004 get-together),” she added. “But he was like, ‘I want us to be a band and call it Lake Street Dive, which is a street in Minneapolis that has a lot of dive bars, and I want us to be a band that could essentially make music that would be played in these types of places.’”
Olson, a songwriter whose arsenal of instruments included trumpet and guitar, departed the band in 2021, writing on social media, “After 16 years playing in Lake Street Dive, it is time for a change. I’m going to hang up my trumpet and let someone else take a turn on the tour bus. … I’ve come to realize the measure of a band is in the quality of the people in the audience. We’re really lucky to have you. … The next time Lake Street Dive is in town, maybe I’ll see you … but in the crowd this time. I know it’s going to be a great show.”
Moonlight Moments
That was the case on this night, even when they interpreted other material. Several covers featured each of the core members, allowing them at least one special, shining moment in the moonlight while also contributing to the splendid harmonic blend.
While the orchestra took a brief break, the Dive Five gathered closely around each other as Price shared, “We didn’t always have sold-out shows at Red Rocks and symphonies asking us to play. … Playing in small dive bars … figuring out our sound and how to get people to listen to us at all, we started playing covers that people know.” Their tune included a singalong and an instrumental solo by Kearney during a slowed-down, funky take on a cover that became “one of the ones that really started to (draw an) audience,” Price offered. Their rendition, presented on a Brighton, Massachusetts, sidewalk in 2012, became a YouTube viral sensation viewed almost 8 million times.
The song? Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”.
Seven minutes later, at the halfway point of the show, Calabrese preceded a worldwide favorite not usually on the set list by asking rhetorically, “You guys realize how cool it is to play Red Rocks? We get to share this night with a lot of our friends and families (who) came out to the show. And my parents are here tonight. It’s my Mom’s birthday!” (screams, cheers, applause)
The song everyone sang to Mike’s mother, Kathy, whose face was shown on the big screen. “Happy Birthday to You”.
After a group toast (tequila, anyone?), two more numbers, and the orchestra’s return, Calabrese “formally” introduced Brooklyn native Bermiss, praising his vocabulary and “ability to succinctly explain complex topics. … He’s also a very, very good interpreter of songs in his own right, specifically of Canadian artists.”
The song, with Bermiss on the keys and sexy R&B lead vocals, is Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One”. This country-pop hit received sky-high audience approval, which was heightened by Cornelison’s slick guitar licks, which took it into an altered state.
Approaching the concert’s 90-minute mark, Price, in the middle of the merriment most of the night while exhibiting some fancy footloose footwork, found some willing dance partners in the first few rows for Good Together’s “Dance With a Stranger”. She announced: “This song is an invitation to dance. So if you’ve been holding out, now is the time.”
Symphony String Shift
More feel-good tunes like “Far Gone”, and “Party on the Roof” (with references to Colorado and the Rocks for this special date) and the opening title cut surely grabbed the attention of anyone wanting to dance all night long, even if their seats were in the 95th row. But the Colorado Symphony, under the guidance of resident conductor Christopher Dragon, helped Lake Street Dive up their game, too.
Red Rocks were treated to a wondrous version of “This Magic Moment” (featuring Huntertones’ Lampley on trumpet). It was part of a powerful one-two punch early in the set, following “Anyone Who Had a Heart”, another romantic classic supplemented by a swelling string section and performed for the first time on this tour.
“When we found out that we were going to do a show at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony, we decided that we really wanted to do this Burt Bacharach song because Burt Bacharach tunes are known for their orchestral arrangements,” said Price, pointing out, it’s “one of our favorite songs that he wrote that Dionne Warwick made famous.” Warwick’s version, recorded in November 1963, must have inspired other artists, from Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield to Elton John and Luther Vandross, to embrace its sweet sounds.
Obviously, Lake Street Dive, occasionally occupied by individual side projects, have never snubbed their noses at playing songs written or performed by someone else. That Live at the Lizard Lounge album with covers such as Hall & Oates’ “Rich Girl” and George Michael’s “Faith” also includes “This Magic Moment”, which was first recorded by the Drifters in 1960. (Studio versions of those, along with “I Want You Back” and Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Let Me Roll It” can be found on 2014’s Fun Machine EP.)
Maybe it’s taken a while for Lake Street Dive to find notoriety, yet they continue to inch closer to fame, with fortune possibly to follow. In 2016, Side Pony reached No. 1 on Billboard’s rock albums chart followed by 2018’s Free Yourself Up at No. 2 and 2021’s Obviously (their last album with Olson) at No. 7. Whether they can surpass that kind of success with Good Together remains to be seen, but their more concentrated collaborative songwriting process at Calabrese’s home studio in Vermont was a leap of faith in the right direction.
Though their danceable numbers bring a little joy to an often cruel world, two tender ballads from the LP played down the stretch at Red Rocks prove love and heartbreak will be everlasting themes.
Dance with Romance
Price set up “Twenty-Five” with a bittersweet story about growing up in the South and discovering that “the Waffle House was the cool place to hang out. A lot of the seeds of my first romance played out at the Waffle House. I would go there late at night, and I would order a decaf coffee, and I would write in my journal, like (being) super-emo. And I would wait for him to come in and see me.”
While that relationship didn’t last and Price sometimes felt “a little twinge of sourness” recalling those days, she sounds perfectly fine singing lyrics like “I always think of you whеn I drink affogatos.” Even if the Italian dessert combining hot espresso with ice cream isn’t on the menu.
Album closer “Set Sail (Prometheus & Eros)”, which was saved for the first encore, was even more dramatic, an epic tale beautifully played and performed as a Price-Bermiss duet. Quoted in a track-by-track release, Bermiss took Kearney’s initial idea about “two humans landing on a new planet after narrowly escaping the destruction of Earth” and developed it into “a little bit love story, a little bit space opera, a little bit creation myth … that ultimately “made perfect sense.”
As a fittingly perfect way to end a night of music-making or love-making, the song deserves to one day win a Grammy or be featured in a Tony Award-winning show. It’s tailor-made for Standing O’s and Bravos wherever it’s played, whether the venue is Red Rocks or future dates at other iconic venues like their inaugural headline performance at New York’s Madison Square Garden on 14 September or London’s sold-out Roundhouse next January.
Just thinking about the endless possibilities that await LSD reminds me of Price’s summation of the band’s status during our interview ten years ago.
“We spent eight years playing in rooms where we were trying to get people’s attention,” she said. “And now we’re walking into sold-out rooms, and we just have everyone’s attention at the beginning of the show. Like there’s no winning over. It’s like we’re starting at a completely different level from the beginning of the first song. And that’s very exciting for us. You can’t measure that sort of thing in success or the amount of gigs or press or whatever. It’s like this is that feeling. Like we walk out, and we have 500 faces smiling up at us ready to have a good time.”
With crowds multiplying appreciably in size since then, this Dive Five have raised the bar band to new heights. For those keeping count, that’s 6,450 feet at Red Rocks, to be exact.
Lake Street Dive Setlist
Live at Red Rocks
Performing with the Colorado Symphony
Morrison, Colorado
21 July 2024
Song (album)
1. “Good Together” (2024’s Good Together)
2. “Hypotheticals” (2021’s Obviously)
3. “Seats at the Bar” (Good Together)
4. “Baby Don’t Leave Me Alone With My Thoughts” (2018’s Free Yourself Up)
5. “Making Do” (Obviously)
6. “Know That I Know” (Obviously)
7. “Anyone Who Had a Heart” (Burt Bacharach cover)
8. “This Magic Moment” (The Drifters cover)
9. “Far Gone” (Good Together)
10. “Better Not Tell You” (Good Together)
11. “Get Around” (Good Together)
12. “Party On the Roof” (Good Together)
13. “I Want You Back” (Jackson 5 cover)
14. “I Can Change” (Free Yourself Up)
15. “Help Is On the Way” (Good Together)
16. “Call Off Your Dogs” (2016’s Side Pony)
17. “You’re Still the One” (Shania Twain cover)
18. “Twenty-Five” (Good Together)
19. “Shame, Shame, Shame” (Free Yourself Up)
20. “Stop Your Crying” (2014’s Bad Self Portraits)
21. “Side Pony” (Side Pony)
22. “Dance With a Stranger” (Good Together)
23. “You Go Down Smooth” (Bad Self Portraits)
Encore
1. “Set Sail (Prometheus & Eros)” (Good Together)
2. “Bad Self Portraits” (Bad Self Portraits)
3. “Good Kisser” (Free Yourself Up)