It was probably the smallest event in the 10 Days of Random Musical Kindness to celebrate 89.3 the Current's 10th anniversary.
The Bryant Lake Bowl theater holds about 89.3 people. For its most exclusive win-a-ticket-on-the-radio concert, the Current on Sunday night turned to Jeremy Messersmith, who has pretty much become the station's musical mascot, and Dan Wilson, who was the first interview subject taped for the station before it went on the air in January 2005.
But the show ended up belonging to Caroline Smith, a newer local kid in the Current stable.
She stole the evening with her pluck, presence and personality. The least famous but the most unguarded of the three, she hit the stage first, working solo, and announced that backstage she had just done her impression of Creed's Scott Stapp and did the audience want to hear it. Suffice it to say, Smith had the crowd at Stapp.
Seeing her without a band was a revelation. She sparkled throughout the night, whether telling stories (one was about a date with whom she was splitting a slice of piece and he wanted her to pony up $1.75 for her share), singing her songs about her complicated life (clearly inspired by Mary J. Blige, the songs, not her life) or providing backup vocals for Messersmith and Wilson.
Smith tells it like it is in conversation and song. She dedicated "Child Moving On" to her mom (who was in the audience) who "taught me to keep moving on no matter how many assholes you marry."
When it came time for the encore at the end of 90-some minutes of music, Smith took charge and requested :"Closing Time," the smash hit Wilson had enjoyed with his band Semisonic.
When the three singers tackled "Someone Like You," which Wilson wrote with Adele, Smith took the low harmony part and let the boys take the higher parts. When it came time for Messersmith and Wilson to be her backup singers on "Bloodstyle," she insisted on giving them some of her bling (a bracelet for Jeremy, a sparkly ring for Dan) and called them her "girls."
