A singular concert experience

It was cold but not too cold for Minnesota in January as I left the house shortly after 7 p.m. on a Monday. Going out after dark on a weeknight wouldn’t have been unusual in the old normal life, but after about ten months of pandemic living, it felt extremely strange.

I walked as quickly as I could on the slippery pavement. My nerves were on edge thinking about seeing other people outside my bubble — and wondering what I was in store for on this particular night.

A Long Shot

I’d recently entered a contest for something that was so out there I just had to go for it — local music site Music in Minnesota was putting on a series of “one-on-one” shows. As far as I could tell, the winner would be the sole audience member at a show at a Twin Cities venue. I had to try! I’d entered for a couple of Americana acts I recognized. One caught my eye right away — a chance to see Gabriel Douglas at Icehouse in Minneapolis.

By coincidence, I’d had a ticket to see him for the first time at that very venue back in October, when a freak snowstorm forced the club to cancel the show. When Icehouse had started having outdoor, socially distanced shows in 2020, I bought tickets for every act I knew and did Youtube research on the ones I didn’t. Gabriel Douglas’s voice and playing caught my ear right away. I was excited to see him in person and disappointed when the show didn’t happen.

I didn’t expect to have any better luck when I entered the contest, so I was floored when I was informed that I’d won! The details were still vague, but I learned I could bring a plus-one, so I enlisted my concert buddy Dan, who’s always up for random music adventures. (Once we took the light rail between the Turf Club and First Avenue so we could catch part of two acts, Jake LaBotz and Jacob Banks. We dubbed it the “night of #2Jakes.”)

The Waiting Game

A week or so later I’d found myself on a Zoom call with Tom Smouse, a writer at Music in Minnesota and a mastermind behind this concert series. I wrote down my thoughts beforehand in hopes I wouldn’t be too scattered — I interview people regularly as part of my day job but I’m not used to being the interviewee. (Fun fact: I eventually turned a lot of my notes into the first piece I did for this site, “What music means to me”!)

But Smouse put me at ease right away — recognizing and complimenting my Cactus Blossoms T-shirt is a great way to curry favor with me! — and if I babbled, at least I had fun doing it.

That was it for a few weeks, until I got confirmation of the date and time. I waited anxiously — there’s not much in the way of social events on the schedule during a pandemic, but even if there had been, this was one upcoming show that would have stood out in my mind.

The day came and I got to the locked door of the darkened bar — and realized I wasn’t sure how I was going to get in. It felt like going to a speakeasy and not knowing the secret password! I texted Dan who had already been let in, and he came to get me.

Inside, I saw that all the tables but one had been cleared from the main floor of the club, and it hit me for the first time that it really would just be me and Dan in the audience. Gabriel Douglas was already on stage, soundchecking and getting set up. I tried not to stare.

Soon Smouse and photographer Laura Buhman whisked me away to be photographed in various parts of the club, and did their best to help me and Dan not look super awkward, which, even in the best of circumstances, I’m pretty awkward when people are taking my picture, and then add masks, meeting new people for the first time in months yet keeping six feet away from them when possible, feeling like I was the center of attention, thinking about being one of the only audience members at the upcoming show — yeah, I was extra awkward. (It’s OK, it was very on brand for me — I was still having a great time! At my age when you’re socially hopeless but love being around people, you learn to roll with the awkward.)

The show started a little late, so it was good to have the photo session to temper the anticipation. At last we helped ourselves to beers supplied by the show’s sponsor, Utepils Brewery, and settled down to wait for it to start.

Blissed-Out on Live Music

Douglas did some preliminary stage patter and, of course, most of it was directed at me — by name! I’m not usually a person who shout-talks back to artists during stage patter, but I felt obligated for this show — Dan and I were going to have to cover all the audience roles tonight. So I did my best and at some point I got the feeling that Douglas was feeling slightly awkward about this whole situation too, and that kind of made me feel better. I wasn’t feeling weird just because I’m weird — it was a weird scenario and we were all feeling weird. From that point on, I just embraced all of it and savored the weirdness. After all, I hadn’t entered this contest because it sounded typical, had I? This was what I was here for — an experience like none I’d ever had.

And then Douglas started singing, and the time for overthinking was over. I was just lost in the music. I generally am very attentive in the presence of live music, but that was intensified by the quiet emptiness of the venue. And I feel so fortunate that this was the first time I saw Douglas, because his voice is — complex.

I’m still learning how to write about music, so I don’t know all the terms. If I tried to describe Gabriel Douglas’s voice, it might end up sounding like I was writing the descriptions for a flight of whiskeys. Buttery rich, with the metallic aftertaste of water you just pumped yourself and are drinking from a bucket with a ladle, splintery and rough at times like a sun-worn fencepost yet also soft and comforting like Kurt Cobain’s grandpa sweater...OK, now I’m being silly on purpose, but he really does have a voice that’s full of subtle elements that I might not have caught had I first seen him at a noisy club. Now that I have, I feel like I’ll hear them no matter how noisy the venue when I see him again.

He asked for requests, so I suggested the first song of his I’d found on Youtube, “Holding Patterns.” It’s particularly suited to his voice and still one of my favorites of his even now that I’ve heard many more.

The show was meant to last about 30 minutes. The first few songs were filmed, and then Smouse and the rest of the crew faded into the background. Between songs they cheered and contributed to the back-and-forth with Douglas, and once when he took a bathroom break they talked me into getting up on stage for a couple more photos (awkwardness live and in person!), but during the songs it really was just me and Dan and Gabriel Douglas.

I checked the time once in a while but mostly just stayed riveted to the music, listening to that voice and watching his fingers on the guitar. Being able to pay that much attention to every aspect of a performance is so luxurious, the half hour just flew by. Partway into that, I felt a shift where Douglas was really enjoying performing. “This feels like a real show!” he said at one point. Thirty minutes turned to 40, and soon it had been an hour. Dan and I whispered about it a bit, sharing a “Can you believe this?” look. Douglas showed no sign of wanting to stop playing, and the organizers didn’t step in, so our show went on and on, gloriously long, a full 90 minutes.

With the outdoor shows I’d been seeing during the pandemic, especially in the fall, there were always distractions of some kind — traffic, wind, the cold seeping into my bones. There were no distractions here, and so it was the most satisfying show I’d seen for nearly a year. And the most unique, by a long shot! I was sorry when it was over, but elated. I felt like I’d been promised a snack and given a four-course meal instead — overwhelmed but incredibly fortunate.

Gabriel Douglas, Icehouse 2021

For even more about this magical night, read Music in Minnesota’s original article and watch an exclusive video of Douglas performing “Holding Patterns.”

Carol Roth is a full-time marketing copywriter and the main music journalist and social media publicist for Adventures in Americana. In addition to studying the guitar and songwriting, Carol’s additional creative side hustle is writing self-proclaimed “trashy” novels under the pseudonym @taberkeley!

One-on-One Show: Gabriel Douglas

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