I’m so glad I didn’t miss the Andrew Heringer Band on Thursday night. I was staying home watching the college football championship game (Alabama beat Texas in a good one) when some friends called and said get on down to the Vintage Wine Bar in Redding.
The five-piece ensemble (at times six with vocalist Marlana Sheetz) played a high-end blend of jazz and folk/rock that was reminiscent of the Counting Crows or Jason Mraz. Not only were Heringer’s songs interesting lyrically and musically, the young Sacramento musicians found a lot of improvisational terrain to explore and looked like they were having a ball doing it.
The band seemed rooted in jazz, but expanded nicely on Heringer’s original tunes. Throughout the evening, they covered a lot of ground from jazz to pop, melodic rock, folk, blues and reggae. (I, of course, had the less-than-admirable reaction: "Man, I hate these young, obnoxiously talented musicians having so much fun and being so creative and being so … young. Why wasn’t I doing this in my youth?" Alas, you can’t go there.)
Anyway, Heringer will be playing the Vintage with Sheetz again in a couple months. For more information on the Andrew Heringer Band, visit their website .
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I have to give a shout-out to a band that I haven’t seen in a while, but caught up with on New Year’s Day at Johnny’s Cathouse. It was great to hear guitarist Chris Manteiga and his group Turning Point, which sounded better than ever.
Manteiga has a killer sound system and his band sounded awesome playing its mix of straight-ahead rock. In addition to Manteiga, the group currently includes vocalist Jason Lensing, drummer Nick Prado and bassist Ryan Thomas.
It’s a big job to keep a big room like Johnny’s rockin’ all night, but Turning Point was totally up to the task.
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Now, in terms of music that rocks in a much different kind of way — the Performing Arts Society presents Michael Falta, Nathan Falta, Olivia Hayes and Landon Cox in a recital that includes music by Beethoven, Vivaldi and Giovanni Battista. The free show is at 7:30 tonight at Old City Hall (1313 Market St. in Redding). Emily Christensen and Jill Cox will also accompany.
