You can listen to Adam Arcuragi, a North meets South folk singer, any and everywhere: NPR, La Blogotheque, and on his current tour heading back to the Midwest on Tuesday.
At IOTA, Arcuragi stomps his feet, flips his long hair, and screams (in perfect pitch) to the ceiling. Reminds me of a possessed Dave Matthews at his best. The ache in Arcuragi’s voice brings me way down with the chorus of “Broken Throat,” “Oh don’t leave me god take me home / Oh don’t leave me god take me home / Comes and it comes in the form of the voice he knows / Singing oh I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,” without thinking I am lip-syncing by the last “I know.”
The Lupine Chorale Society get to flex their muscles in “President’s Song,” with a bass singer whose voice was so deep that I caught myself giggling, this talented barbershop injection to Arcuragi’s version of Mid Atlantic soul-country-gospel perfectly arranged. AA & LCS cut the set short, wrapping up with “Bottom of the River.” Already a hit, it allows Arcuragi the freedom to sing any way he wishes and hop back into the chorus, “I will lay on the bottom of that river / Spending my time where old swords go to die…” Just the same, it is delightfully loose.
Try Adam Arcuragi & The Lupine Chorale Society if you like: Jackson Brown, Van Morrison, James Taylor, or Chuck Brodsky.
Cameron McGill opened up with a solo acoustic version of “Bad Ambassador.” Cameron McGill and What Army, from Chicago, harmonize, take you on piano adventures, and astonish with songwriting talent. I could not have gotten luckier with this opener: thoroughly entertaining personalities on stage, weird and wonderful gestures without fail, and intensely silly “performance faces” during “Dead Rose,” a track with loosely-arranged vocals where McGill shined.
McGill erratically strums his ornate guitar and thrusts his head and neck like a chicken but the sounds that come from his lungs are unpredictable. I listened in unwavering surprise, wowed, and a few times confused, by the dueling voices inside his head: one a soft falsetto, the other a confident balladeer. The dichotomy was most apparent in his new Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son”-like song “Euphoria,” singing in two entirely different voices and requesting more reverb before he broke into a schizophrenic-like twitch.
I am embarrassed to say (and please Cameron, take no offense) that when he hits some of his MOST beautiful notes, he reminds me of Enrique Iglesias, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. I hope to see them again soon, maybe at Schubas in Chicago, to get the full hometown effect. And the way they’ve toured so far, I’ll be given that chance.
Overall, an unbelievably splendid way to spend a Tuesday night. I am unsure of how Arcuragi and Cameron McGill got together on this tour, but they are two of the most animated and impassioned lead vocalists I’ve seen writhe on stage.
