Author: Michael Witthaus

Willie Nile on making the best music of his life

By Michael Witthaus
[email protected]

“The Benjamin Button of rock ’n’ roll” is what VH1 Storytellers creator Bill Flanagan once called Willie Nile. “Because my career has been ass backwards,” Nile said recently. It’s true; the Buffalo-born rocker made two great albums early and waited 10 years for his third. Since then, he’s released over a dozen more, including nine in the last 12 years.

Nile’s energy level is up to 11, and he’s so confident he can inspire a crowd with his high-energy rock that he offers a guarantee. “If you want to see a spark and some light in this darkness, come to a show,” he said. “If you’re not blown away and you don’t feel better walking out the door, you’ll get your money back … and I don’t mean you’ll just like it.”

Every night, Willie Nile leaves everything on the stage, exiting fully soaked in sweat, usually after more than one standing ovation. He’ll play great songs from the early days like “Vagabond Moon” along with rave-ups like “This Is Our Time,” a cut from 2013’s American Ride and “The Day The Earth Stood Still,” the title track from his last studio album.

“Nothing’s changed, except I think I’m singing better,” he said. “My voice has gotten just a little richer. Maybe I wouldn’t go that far; I’m a little Sam Cooke, but I mean, I’m having more fun. The set lists are never better than this, and it’s a ball. I’m still feeling it in every pore of my body, and I’m not the only one.”

If the measure of a person is the company they keep, Nile is a star. He got his first big break when the booker at Kenny’s Castaways convinced Robert Palmer, the New York Times’ premier critic in the 1970s, to arrive early for a show he was covering to catch Nile’s opening set. The rave review led to a record deal and a tour opening for The Who.

Bruce Springsteen invited Nile to open for him in front of 70,000 fans in New Jersey’s Giants Stadium, and in 2009 pulled him from the audience to sing Jackie Wilson’s song “Higher & Higher” at a show that turned out to be Clarence Clemons’ last with the E Street Band.

Nine years ago he stood between Springsteen and Pete Townshend to perform “Won’t Get Fooled Again” in a band that included Billy Idol and Who lead singer Roger Daltrey. Nile also played “Substitute” and “Kids Are Alright” at the show, a Grammy MusiCares tribute.

“I remember thinking, what’s wrong with this picture?” he recalled, and talked about working out how to play the Who classic backstage with the Boss, who also didn’t know the song. “For 15 minutes, like two high school kids … we learn ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again.’ You can’t make this stuff up; I’m living a dream.”

Nile, however, isn’t the least bit starstruck by the music legends who love him.

“I’m just too dumb to know any better, but fame was never what I cared about,” he said. “It was always about the songs … that’s gotten me through some really small keyholes into some unique places.”

The inverse of that is what led him to leave music in the wake of his first two critically lauded albums when the industry harshed his mellow, then return in 1991 with Places I Have Never Been. He just wasn’t feeling it anymore. He and his then-wife — he’s now married to Italian photographer Cristina Arrigoni — moved back to Buffalo and had four kids.

“I stayed there through the eighties,” he said. “I stopped playing, but I was always writing. That’s what I do. I’ll write till I drop. At this rate, I’ll be playing till I drop, but it’s like my dad says … he asks, ‘How you doing?’ and I’ll say, ‘I’m working really hard, I’m pretty beat.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, but you get to do what you love. You’re a lucky guy.’ And he’s right.”

Even in conversation, one can hear the raucous Nile’s rock ’n’ roll heart beat. When he’s up on stage blazing through his massive catalog or covering a gem like the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane” — Lou Reed was another New Yorker Nile knew — it’s like attending a revival tent party in 4/4 time.

So don’t go to The Rex on Nov. 15 with any thoughts of getting a refund. Rather, expect many moments when Nile’s spirit lifts the crowd to its feet. “I’m a 76-year-old dude and having the time of my life and doing the best shows in my career,” he said. “I’m having a ball, still writing at the top of my game, and the songs are still coming.”

An Evening With Willie Nile
When: Friday, Nov. 15, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $35 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Willie Nile. Courtesy photo.

Celtic Thunder returns to Capitol Center

By Michael Witthaus
[email protected]

At an upcoming show in downtown Concord, Celtic Thunder will feature several selections from Odyssey, an album they released last year along with a PBS special. The group’s lead singer, tenor Emmet Cahill, called the record a return to their roots in a recent phone interview.

“We have those traditional, very patriotic songs that tell the story of the foundation of the Irish state back in the early 1900s,” he said. “People are very passionate about that historical side to Ireland … it’s given us so much of our identity. We pay homage to the people who sacrificed everything for Irish independence, freedom and liberty.”

There are always fun moments, Cahill continued. One of his favorites on the new album is “The Wellerman,” a lively sea shanty that’s gone viral. “It’s about 30 million views now,” he said. “That song’s brought in a whole new audience for us, people who maybe wouldn’t have known about Celtic Thunder before and absolutely love that. It’s a bit of a hook; once it gets into your head, it’s there.”

One of the hallmarks of a Celtic Thunder concert is staying upbeat even if songs sometimes touch on somber topics; for example, “City of Chicago” is about the potato famine.

“There are serious moments, but it’s a fun experience,” he said. “There’s people singing along, and we’re keeping our old classics like ‘Caledonia,’ ‘Ireland’s Call’ and ‘Heartland.’ All the ones that fans from the very start will always expect to hear.”

The onstage banter between Cahill, Neil Byrne, Damian McGinty and Ronan Scolard is another perennial highlight.

“The nice thing about being in Celtic Thunder is that we go out and we’re just ourselves,” Cahill said. “We’re guys who grew up in Ireland telling these stories and we’re having fun doing it. I think that’s what people like, the realness of the show.”

Cahill spoke from Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where the group had just performed. They’d also sung the national anthem at the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Monday Night Football game. After shows in New Jersey and New York, the group would be heading to New England, and he was looking forward to it.

“New Hampshire, Massachusetts, the big Boston Irish communities, even when we go out to places like Maine, I think Irish people feel very at home there,” he said. “I always find in the Northeast that the humor is very similar to the Irish, dark and funny. I also like their straight talk … people just tell you what they’re thinking, or what they think of you.”

Celtic Thunder has performed multiple times at Concord’s Capitol Center, most recently in 2021. A Nov. 10 show there will be their last in the U.S., with five shows in Canada following to close out a tour that commenced in early September. Cahill won’t be slowing down, however. Two weeks later he’ll hit the road for Florida, Texas and California.

He’s made a couple of Christmas albums, and the season is always busy.

“I’ve carved a little bit of a niche out for myself in the faith communities in America, which has been great because it’s kind of where I came from,” he said. “My dad was a music minister in our church, and I was always singing that type of music as well as the Irish folk songs. They were the two genres that were ever present in our house in Ireland.”

With a majority of their shows happening stateside, Cahill recognizes the close Irish/American connection but believes there’s more to explain why fans regularly flock to see them.

“I think we’re pretty fun people to hang out with, we’re pretty lighthearted, we’re welcoming and embrace other cultures,” he said. “People want to be in on the act, which is what we get at our shows. It’s not predominantly Irish Americans who come … I think it’s the general American public who say, ‘Oh, this is just a really enjoyable night out.’”

Celtic Thunder Odyssey
When: Sunday, Nov. 10, 7 p.m.
Where: Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $60.75 and up at ccanh.com

Featured photo: Celtic Thunder. Courtesy photo.

Moon Walker comes to Concord

Cirque du Soleil’s The Beatles Love, which closed last July after 18 years in Las Vegas, was both a musical revue and a hallucinatory spectacle. It was also the introduction to the Fab Four for a young Harry Springer, and it left a lasting impression. When he returned from the show, Springer convinced his parents to buy him a guitar.

Though it didn’t come up in a recent phone interview, it’s a safe bet Springer, who performs as Moon Walker, was partial to John Lennon. His music is a heady hybrid of glam rock and dreamy pop, which is appropriate for a guy who also cites Marc Bolan as a guiding light. He’s also fond of psychedelia stalwarts like Jellyfish and Supergrass.

In Lennon-esque fashion, Springer uses music as a platform for his politics. On TikTok, he stitches his songs to examples of hypocrisy, such as videos that tout tough parenting, parochial thinking and petty prejudices. It’s a winning formula, as his posts have garnered 16 million likes, and his @moonwalkerband account currently has nearly 400,000 followers.

“Give the People What They Want,” from 2023’s Apocalypticism, casts a wary eye at consumerism, “We want … houses we can’t pay for, jobs we can’t stay awake for,” Springer sings. Lately, he’s lambasting religion, on songs like “Regular People” and his latest, “New God,” a bracing track punctuated by shredding guitar and spacey, layered vocals.

Like the Beatle who wrote, “God is a concept by which we measure our pain,” Springer is sharp in his critiques, but it’s not in response to the way he was raised. It’s just the way he sees the world. “A lot of the things that get me worked up politically boil down almost exclusively to religion,” he said. “Sometimes, I don’t recognize that it’s going to bother people … until it does; and it always bothers the right people.”

Springer puts his faith in music, and he’s a relentless student. A conversation on influences veers from prog industrialists Can to Curtis Mayfield, who wrote “Superfly” and “People Get Ready,” to the proto-nerdcore Modern Lovers, a Boston group that included a future member of Talking Heads, a band he positively reveres.

“The funny thing is I discovered all three of those at the same time, so in my mind they’re strangely linked,” he said. This was during the beginning of the pandemic, a time when Springer had moved from Colorado to Los Angeles with his band Midnight Club to make a name for itself on the club circuit, only to end up in quarantine.

With no gigs to play and time on his hands, Springer began writing songs for Moon Walker and in October 2021 released Truth To Power, collaborating in the studio with drummer Sean McCarthy. A second album, The Attack of Mirrors, came a year later, followed by Apocalypticism last October.

This year he’s released several singles, including the antiwar “Genocide Money” in July. Considering his studio prowess, it wouldn’t be surprising if Moon Walker hit the road as a duo; Springer, McCarthy, and a looping machine packed with samples. That’s not what’s happening, however.

For a Concord show with fellow indie rockers Moon City Masters opening, Moon Walker will perform as a trio. Springer will work with a different drummer; McCarthy will be back in SoCal, but will rejoin Nov. 13 for a tour that will hit California, Oregon and Washington.

Like the many musicians Springer admires, most of whom had their heyday before MTV hit the airwaves, Moon Walker is old-school onstage.

“We don’t do tracks, so there are certain songs we can’t really play, but it’s kind of freeing — there’s no pressure to match the record because it’s physically not possible,” he said, adding, “I love the energy of a live show. There’s something that moves you when a band is in the moment and playing well together. I think it makes for a relatively unique experience. It’s going to be entirely different every night.”

Moon Walker w/ Moon City Masters
When: Friday, Nov. 1, 8 p.m.
Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $19 and $31 at ccanh.com

Featured photo: Moon Walker. Courtesy photo.