Show Review: The Sapsuckers at Icehouse
The Sapsuckers at Icehouse, Minneapolis
The Sapsuckers at Icehouse, Minneapolis. Photo credit: Carol Roth
It was a night of post-lockdown firsts. It was my first mask-free indoor show. (My wife and I waffled right up until we entered the building, because our young kids can’t get vaccinated yet. But daily new cases in Minneapolis are down to single digits. Plus, Icehouse is an airy high ceilinged club and it was a seated show with plenty of space between tables.)
For the friends we went with, it was their first show since lockdown, period. And for the Sapsuckers, it was their first indoor show in over 450 days.
I must’ve been at one of their last pre-pandemic shows because I saw them in February 2020. That was a somewhat rare treat because they’re a Wisconsin-based band, so they don’t come through the Twin Cities too often.
They’ve had a few outdoor gigs over the past year—including a series they held on their own property—but all in Wisconsin or their other home base Missouri.
But I also got to see this husband and wife duo (Joe Hart and Nikki Grossman) perform more during the pandemic than I ever did before it. That was thanks to their fairly frequent livestream shows. A lot of my favorite bands retreated from the public eye during lockdown. I don’t blame them—it’s been a rough year-plus and livestreams were just not as good as live music, especially in the early days when everyone struggled with technology issues. But at the same time, I felt adrift—recorded music does even less to fill the live show gap. So, the Sapsuckers were a lifeline for me.
The Sapsuckers at Icehouse, Minneapolis. Photo credit: Carol Roth
They’ve got more than an album’s worth of new songs, and I knew them practically by heart by the time they took the stage at Icehouse. The duo continually evolve their sound—they even sometimes play with a full band, as they did that night! Now it’s a unique blend of classic country, folk and even some modern Nashville flair. Their songs range from humorous ditties (which was their specialty when I first discovered them in 2017) to heartbreaking ballads, with a bunch of other styles in between.
They’ve mastered the Nashville punny punchline tradition: One song about hitting a deer and calling a buddy to help out (and bring some brews) featured the refrain “I feel like a beer in the headlights.” As my friend put it, “That should’ve already been a country song forty years ago—how has no one thought of that before? But at least it’s here now!”
Their wistful ballad game is also strong, like their single “Wishes”—available to purchase or stream on all the usual platforms—featuring soaring harmonies and lyrics on a par with master songwriters like Jason Isbell. (Sample lines: “A mile out of town there's a gravel road / The old trail to the overpass / Hairpin turns to the top of the ridge / You always took them way too fast.”)
The Sapsuckers at Icehouse, Minneapolis. Photo credit: Carol Roth
They played these two and countless other songs in a two-hour, two-set show punctuated by the usual stumbles of post-lockdown jitters (restarting a song because it was in the wrong key; Hart’s guitar taking a swan dive off the stage, thankfully emerging undamaged, when its stand collapsed) but also an engaged, effusive crowd, many more of whom told Grossman after the show that it was their first in over a year too. Their backing band included Minneapolis musicians Chris Hepola on drums and Eric Struve on standup bass as well as St. Louis multi-instrumentalist Ryan Koenig, who alternated between harmonica, mandolin, lap steel and accordion, so we got to experience a multitude of sounds.
They played a few songs from their previous three records, including one from their very first album, only available by download at their site. I believe I first heard the plaintive ballad “Red Columbine” at their 2020 show, but it’s become one of my favorites through livestreams (and through finding that earliest album download in their merch store). The seated crowd roared for an encore at the end of the show and they obliged with my wife’s favorite song of theirs, the lilting, yodel-inflected “Ocooch Mountain Home.”
The Sapsuckers at Icehouse, Minneapolis. Photo credit: Carol Roth
They’ve promised an EP in addition to an album, and thank goodness, because I know over a dozen of their new songs and I wouldn’t be able to choose which ones to cut. One of my absolute favorites is “Carla Joan,” a wonderfully bizarre story-song about a roadside encounter between someone who may or may not be Carla Joan and a person with a gun. I swear to god, if that song doesn’t appear on one of the upcoming records, I’ll mutiny. (I don’t know how you do that with a band, or whether that’s even a verb. I’ll figure it all out later.)
I don’t know when the Sapsuckers will be back in the Cities, but if you live anywhere near Wisconsin or Missouri, you should be able to see them in the coming year. There’s no release date set for their record, but it sounds like it’s nearing completion.
Meanwhile, stream or buy “Wishes,” and find other goodies on their merch page:
Check out video footage below of The Sapsuckers playing “Road Song,” which will hopefully be on one of the new records!
Carol Roth. Photo credit: Dan Lee.
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!
