Play for Me by Candlelight

The setting was a log cabin with chickens, an owl and a bamboo forest out back.

The occasion was a house show on the front screened-in porch, lit only by seven tiny white lights and about as many bucket candles.

The catalyst for the show was Sons of an Illustrious Father, a NY band passing through RVA (but unable to find a venue in which to play) from Charm City to NC.

The good fortune was all of ours.

The invited audience of 35 or so was divided evenly between the porch and the front yard.

When asked when the music was going to start, our host Jonathan had given us a heads-up that he'd created a back row of wicker-comfy seating for "the cool kids."

The power couple and I immediately anointed ourselves cool and took those seats for a magical evening of music.

The party had started at 6:30 but it was dusk when the music began and fireflies were everywhere. Josh Small, newly shorn and looking quite handsome, played first.

As usual, he made tuning jokes during his tuning bursts, but, as always, his banjo and guitar-based songs impressed.

Sons of an Illustrious Father was a five-piece (drums, bass, guitar, mandolin and accordion) and on certain songs, every member sang, a truly impressive thing.

Their folky Americana sound made beautiful use of the range of voices and I learned later from member Jake that they all write for the band and purposely trade off lead vocals.

After the first song, drummer Ezra said, "That was devastatingly depressing."

In words, perhaps, but not in sound.

After an inattentive audience in Baltimore last night, the band was thrilled with both our silence and our enthusiasm after each song; they were obviously enjoying themselves as much as we were.

A joke was made about the bass player Josh having no chance of getting laid on this tour; another crack was about Lila not knowing how to play the mandolin (Sofia: "Yes, that's a chord.").

Favorite lyric: "My heart is not made of glass or stone."

Ain't it the truth?

Last up was out host Jonathan, who played a lot of his early material to the delight of the Jonathan groupies in the audience.

It was fitting how the show ended.

Originally the music was to have been performed on the back porch, like it was last summer.

But with an 80% chance of rain, our host had moved it to the sheltered front porch.

And of course, it didn't rain a drop during any of the music.

But when Jonathan finished his last song, the audience shouted for one more.

As if in answer, the skies opened up and the rain came pouring down through the trees surrounding the log cabin.

The outside audience quickly made their way onto the screened-in porch, effectively ending the evening, but in the best possible way.

Tomorrow the brightly-painted school bus that brought Sons of an Illustrious Father to RVA will depart for Wilson, NC.

It would be tough for their memories of Richmond to be any more impressive than ours of them.

Here's hoping that next time they come through our fair city, there's a venue savvy enough to book them here.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't mind mind being one of the select few to experience them at an intimate house show, but honestly, more people deserve to hear them, even without the owl and the bamboo.

And just maybe by then the bass player will have gotten lucky.

Who knows what effect that could have on the entire rythm section?