Circles around the Sun and Mikaela Davis & Southern Star at Skully’s Music-Diner, Columbus, Ohio, March 20, 2024
Mikaela Davis wasn’t the headliner, but she was the star of the show.
The harpist and her band, Southern Star, opened for and sat in with Circles around the Sun at their March 20 gig inside Columbus, Ohio’s, Skully’s Music-Diner. And it was Davis who shone brightest on the darkened stage and who received the most enthusiastic response from the 150 or so mid-week concertgoers.
Having begun life as the Neal Casal-led studio outfit that recorded the PA music for the 2015 reunion of living Grateful Dead members known as Fare Thee Well, CATS weathered Casal’s 2019 suicide, finally settling on John Lee Shannon as the guitarist who would replace the irreplaceable and play and record alongside co-founding members keyboardist Adam MacDougall, bassist Dan Horne and drummer Mark Levy. More ethereal disco than Dead- and jam-oriented as they were in the beginning, the modern CATS is no longer the singular band it was. It is instead part of the larger space-trance genre. MacDougall’s white jacket and his and Shannon’s white loafers added to the leisure-suit-era feel of the gig.
With seven disco balls - four above the stage and three over the audience - Skully’s was decked out appropriately for such a vibe as Davis & Southern Star took the stage.
Seated at her classical instrument with her lime-green shoes cutting through the dim lights spinning off the mirrored orbs, Davis led the band through note-perfect renderings of songs from 2023’s And Southern Star. Drummer Alex Coté, bassist Shane McCarthy, Kurt Johnson on pedal steel and electric guitars and loops and Cian McCarthy on acoustic and electric guitars and saxophone spent 55 minutes running through such tracks as “Far from You,” “Cinderella” and “Leave it Alone” and in doing so continued carving out a place for their unique brand of orchestral, space-country music, reinforced by Johnson and Cian McCarthy’s overalls, where Davis’ harp serves as both lead and rhythm instrument as would keyboards in a more-mainstream act.
One such act is the 2024 edition of CATS, where MacDougall’s multiple sets of keys and electronic percussion drive the band’s dance music with programmed rhythm augmenting Levy’s four-on-the-floor drums, Horne’s chest-rattling bass and Shannon’s rhythm and occasional lead playing on such numbers as “Away Team,” “Outer Boroughs” and “Scarlotta’s Magnolias,” all of which eat up more than 10 of the band’s 90 minutes of stage time.
Undeniable musical chops notwithstanding, the contemporary CATS lacks the transcendence of the Casal era and have replaced it with mere fun. What was once an uninterrupted live-music journey is now a scattering of interesting moments.
Davis retuned to the stage to add harp and wordless vocals - a first for the all-instrumental CATS - to the title track and other cuts from the forthcoming After Sunrise joint EP from the touring partners. Though Davis’ presence reined in Circles’ orbit, it also steadied their wobble for the homestretch.
Grade card: Circles around the Sun and Mikaela Davis & Southern Star at Skully’s Music-Diner - 3/20/24 - C/B-
