If my sister was a Boulderite Hippy, she’d be Beth Preston. And if life is like a box of chocolates, so is coffee house music. Beth is one of the reasons I still love it so much. Even if she weren’t such an amazingly talented singer and songwriter, it’s hard to imagine being in the same room with her for long and not having fun.
Michael Garfield opened for her tonight at the Laughing Goat. He showed us some pretty cool guitar tricks. The art was interesting too, but I don’t know that I would hang it on my walls. Except for one called Symphony. I really liked that one. Black and white, pen and ink numbers by Leslie somebody-or-other. I forgot to write down the name. I’ll try to remember to call them tomorrow and ask. The Dr. Seuss Circus was apparently in town too. Some of the performers were sitting front and center. Oh, wait! That’s just Boulder. Growing up in Rock Island, we had some interesting characters come into the Crossroads Coffeehouse, but they were street people. These were probably CU students. Circus performers, street people, CU students…sometimes it’s hard to keep them straight.
Hm. Yeah. No further comment necessary.
As well as her own material, Beth played a couple of covers, including “Red House.” She’s no Jimi Hendrix on the guitar, but I would love to hear her sing a duet with the man a la Nat and Natalie. In a typically artistic contradiction, she sang one song extolling love for the way things are and another in which she stated, “I’ve become a blurry reflection of someone I’d rather be.” I know exactly what she means.
After about five encores I was still very sorry to see the end of the show. She gets bonus points for audience participation.
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