Vedora At Manhattan Pizza February 23, 2013

Words by Tim Lewis.

I made it to work at 9am Saturday morning, and was pretty bright and energetic. It turned out to be a slow day, and when they were looking for volunteers to leave early, I used a few vacation hours and went home to sleep for the afternoon. I was in a slight haze for the evening, but thought that would be a fine mix with live music. I took the walk to Manhattan Pizza, in the heart of downtown Burlington. I walked in and there was no sign of Vedora. The band space by the door stood empty, under the watchful eyes of the Ramones mural.

I got a seat at the bar, ordered a beer and a slice, and quietly ate while listening to the comings and goings of the place. I glanced over at the band space, and noticed a couple of pieces of the drum kit. I finished eating as the band steadily loaded in. When they were set, I abandoned my bar stool for an out of the way place to stand. Vedora lit in with a killer Basalt Anchor. They followed with a couple of new ones, including an instrumental that I’ve not heard. It was pretty rocking. Dragnet slowly came to life and roared a bit. Maria rocked the place, and was fun as always. Once Upon sounded great and may be my favorite band version of the song. Terrarium was pretty cool, but didn’t pop like it usually does. They followed with Sober and let the slow build fall into a killer Matt Hastings guitar rip. It’s so much fun to be in the audience when he really goes off.

One of my many favorite new songs, All in the Room, caught a funky groove and rocked hard. They have so many smoking new songs, I can’t wait for the next album. Next, they switched it up and Matt took the bass and Caroline O’Connor grabbed the guitar. To Send You, Ritual, and Solution had me in ecstasy.

Matt took back the guitar and growled out a perpetually insistent Promises. It seemed like that was going to be the set break, but they kept going. They played a killer rocker that was the Hank Williams song, Lost Highway. Their cover of True Blue was fun as always. They finally ended the set with an energetic Jump Back.

In the break I chatted with drummer Jeff LaBossiere about the Channel in Boston, Def Leppard, and the Who. The band came back after a reasonably short break and unleashed In The Pines. It had that great rock build and dropped beautifully into Chain. They switched to covers for a bit with Dracula and Love Record Breaker from Missy Bly, then I’m On Fire and Dancing in the Dark by Springsteen. Both Bruce songs had killer sax work by Caroline. They turned back to originals with a new Matt song, Go For a Ride, or something like that. Nice song! They wrapped the night with a funky Get On Board.

The hour was late, so I took a quick departure. I had a long day of work the next day, but it didn’t matter. I had enough time to get some rest, and floated home on elated feet with a head full of music.

This post was originally published by Tim Lewis at his personal blog, https://timstriangletribune.wordpress.com.