Wednesday night was the first time I attended a concert at the Goodyear Theater in Akron. As I followed my GPS to the point where it stated, “you have arrived,” I wondered if I was in the right place as I looked around at the seemingly uninhabited buildings. Once I finally found my way into the building and the theater itself, I was met with a beautiful two-tiered space obviously designed to highlight amazing performances and support incredible acoustics. The sounds and artistry let loose by the musicians that set to the stage shortly thereafter undoubtedly made the engineers proud and treated the audience to great music in a magnificent space.
Roosevelt The Dr. Collier took to the stage first. Flanked by Matt Lapham on bass and Yral Morris on drums, he bathed the audience in waves of funky blues jams that crept into the deepest corners of your being. If anybody in the audience was not previously familiar with soul music, all they had to do was leave themselves open to the power coming from the stage – allow it to enter their body, mind and heart – and they were sure to understand the essence of soul. Those who chose to join the audience just in time for the headlining act missed a powerful portion of the night’s performances.
After The Dr. had warmed up the audience, and the rafters, Railroad Earth hit the stage with their high-energy jams. Filling the theater with their spirited sound, they surprisingly did not instantaneously bring the audience to their feet. Perhaps it was the beautiful, formality of the theater or perhaps they simply needed a few moments to sit back and truly appreciate the music filling the space—no matter the reason, after a handful of songs the bodies started dancing down the aisles and people quickly filled the space in front of the stage. Once the audience’s energy level reached that of the performers on stage, it impressively did not falter through two full sets of music spanning the next three hours.
Throughout the night, as the band members cycled through various instruments and traded time on vocals the feeling was one of togetherness, creation, exploration and fun. A certain playfulness persisted as they entered, from time to time, into a musical banter throwing lines of instrumentation back and forth between one another; particularly between Tim Carbone on violin and John Skehan on mandolin.
Inhabiting opposite sides of the stage, they created a volley of sound encircling their other band mates in their musical playing field. When Roosevelt Collier returned to the stage to join them for a couple songs, they added him to the mix with an instrumental call-and-response intermingled in the high-energy jams that had everybody grooving.
While the music that flowed from the stage infected everybody in the venue, the experience wouldn’t have been complete without the incredible artistry of the sound and light engineers. Their expert precision highlighted the action on stage. The lighting smoothly shifted in mood with the same ease as the sound on stage and each artist was spotlighted through light and sound as they took control of the jam.
The powerful visual imagery that danced with the fervor of the feet throughout the venue took the experience of the evening to another level. And, if you took the time to retreat to the back of the venue to take in the entirety of the environment, you also bore witness to those engineers performing their art with just as much passion as those on stage.
All in all, Wednesday evening at the Goodyear Theater in Akron was one filled with energy, spirit, and amazing sound. Between newly discovering the sounds of Roosevelt Collier and being helpless against the draw to move and groove by the jams of Railroad Earth—I left the venue that evening feeling invigorated with the joy of music. I look forward to seeing these artist and visiting this venue again at the next opportunity.