Lissie with Jillian Rae and Josiah Smith at The Castle

Date: September 25th, 2021
Location: The Castle
Tickets: $28 Adv / $35 Day of Show
Age restriction: All Ages
Doors open 7:00PM
Jillian Rae: 8:00PM
Lissie: 9:00PM

COVID-19 Policy

We will be implementing the following COVID policies for the show on September 25th:

1. Proof of completed COVID-19 vaccination (at least two weeks after final dose) OR a negative test within 72 hours prior to the show will be required to enter.
2. Masks are highly recommended for all while inside the Castle.

These policies follow what other events and venues are doing and will be enforced to make sure we all can have a safe, enjoyable experience and continue to have live music in Rochester. Additional details are available on the COVID-19 Policy page or you can email wassup@mytownmymusic.com if you have additional questions.

We can’t wait to see you on September 25th!

-The MTMM Crew

Rescheduled Date & Refunds

If you’re a current ticket holder holder of this show, thank you for sticking with us as we worked to get this show rescheduled. We understand that a lot has happened over the past year+ and if your situation has changed and you are unable to join us for this date we are offering an option to request a refund. If you’d like to request a refund, please email wassup@mytownmymusic.com. The deadline to submit your refund request is June 30th, 2021.

Lissie

When you look back on your past accomplishments, how do you feel? Do you have a strong sense of nostalgia—an urgent longing to bring things back to how they were? Are there things you wish you could’ve done differently? What would you celebrate, and what would you change?

For Lissie, her past—the last decade or so, to be specific—is something still very much alive and open to interpretation and rephrasing. With the approaching release of When I’m Alone: The Piano Retrospective, the singer is poised to show listeners that her past is hardly static, that the songs she wrote nearly 10 years ago are still fresh and vibrant, evoking feelings old and new.

In the eyes of the midwestern songstress, who in recent years made a conscientious return to her roots with the purchase of some 50 acres in northeastern Iowa, the operative metaphor at work in her career—and in the creation of the retrospective album—is something deeply entropic: gardening.

“When you garden,” she says, thoughtfully, “it’s like all of the things you eat and grow are beautiful, and as they die and decompose, that carnage becomes the food for the plants you grow next year. When you’re out in nature and there’s four seasons, you see the cycle… It spurs my creativity to see how life becomes death becomes life. It’s this beautiful, comforting thing because it’s a constant.”

And that entropic beauty shines through in her work on When I’m Alone. When you listen to the lush, atmospheric arrangements of Lissie’s best-loved, most career-defining tunes, you can almost hear the “carnage” of each past moment and remembered feeling coalescing to form this beautiful, dark tempest of emotion and memory.

It’s a thought that should give you pause—when old songs make you feel new things. And that’s exactly what happens all throughout When I’m Alone. From the title track—reworked in a lower key, Lissie’s voice moving, breathing with all the strength it had when the original version dropped in 2010, but with a new sort of power behind it—to the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s hit, “Dreams,” you get the sense that Lissie is writing a love letter to her past. And it’s not sad or nostalgic at all, but mature, grown-up, looking backward and forward simultaneously.

Stacking up the 10 original songs on When I’m Alone next to their counterparts from throughout the past decade or so, the differences are profound. The new arrangements, written for piano, are considerate, quiet, respectful of their former states. This disparity gives the listener a more complete look back on the arc of Lissie’s songwriting style and canon—the singer sounding more the chanteuse and less the folksy songbird of 10 years past. But we now know these songs are evergreen, permutable.

Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security by the idea of a piano-based retread of Lissie’s most accomplished hits, though. This record is toned down without being buttoned up. These reinterpretations still move in the way the originals do.

For Lissie, the idea behind When I’m Alone came about almost as a test of each tune’s structural integrity.“When you take a song out of its production and strip it down to its basic elements,” she opines, “you get the heart of the song. You find out whether it can stand on its own, whether it’s a good song.When they come down to their basic bones, are these really meaningful pieces that stand on their own?”

The answer here is a resounding “yes—yes they are.” But more than that, they’re about respecting and appreciating the canon Lissie has crafted, along with the emotions and moments that went into writing each song.

“The reason I started writing songs when I was younger was this urgent, pressing need of ‘this is how I process my experiences and my emotions,’” she says. Now, I’m revisiting what the songs were about, which relationship inspired what, and what point my life was at.”

In addition to looking back and analyzing and celebrating her songwriting, though, Lissie’s found herself reasserting her agency through these rearrangements, saying “I’m seeing my romantic history over the last 10 years laid out in song, times when things were challenging, mistakes were made, my feelings were hurt, I acted badly… We can use themistakes as a lesson in order to grow. I feel like being able to go back and revisit my songs is slightly heartbreaking, but also heartening—like, I’ve survived this past decade. I get to decide when and how and what I share.”

It’s this spirit of retrospection and reinterpretation that truly affects what When I’m Aloneis as both a body of work and a test of artistry. And while we’re given this songbook-as-a-scrapbook to pore and puzzle over, Lissie just wants to get back to her farm for a little while—to breathe the open air and sow some seeds in preparation for cultivating her next big move.

Follow Lissie on:
Facebook: facebook.com/lissiemusic
Instagram: @lissiemusic
Twitter: @lissiemusic

Learn more about Lissie at: http://lissie.com/

Jillian Rae

Having cultivated a reputation as the go-to violin accompanist for dozens of bluegrass, rock, and pop bands (including The Okee Dokee Brothers, Corpse Reviver, Adam Levy, and Steve Kaul & the Brass Kings) Jillian Rae planted her own flag in the musical landscape with the 2013 release of Heartbeat, a confident pop record with subtle nods to her bluegrass and classical pedigrees. Her songs are full of heartache, truth, and often a beguiling sense of playfulness. Rae’s songwriting is not easily pigeonholed, and neither is her playing. You can find her playing country fiddle on one tune, rock guitar on the next, or driving her violin through synthy guitar effects on another.

As engaging as her arrangements can be, the real show stopper of her records or live performances is always her effortlessly powerful voice. When Jillian Rae sings, you believe her. Such is the case on her 2017 EP, Wanderlust. More of a stripped-down country record, Wanderlust showcases Rae’s dynamic and earnest vocal chops. Music journalist Youa Vang called Rae a heavy hitter whose “voice will stay with you long after the show is over.”

If Jillian Rae fans thought that Wanderlust might be signal that she’s going country, she has more surprises in store. With the release of her new full length “I can’t be the one you want me to be”, Rae made an even harder pivot. Fans got an early taste of her collaborations with a new lineup and a new producer (The Library Studio’s Matt Patrick), in her cover of Prince’s legendary When Doves Cry. Released as a single, the homage is not only a wholesale rewrite of the tune befitting the towering status of the original, it’s also a marker of a new direction with this new staff on board.

With contributions from Patrick, as well as guitarist and longtime collaborator Eric Martin, bassist Jimmy Osterholt, and drummer Alex Young, “I can’t be the one you want me” to be is saturated in heavy grooves, moody arrangements, and unflinching honesty. And of course her voice, which has never sounded better, more dynamic, or more true than it does on this collection of songs.

Follow Jillian Rae on:
Facebook: facebook.com/jraemusic
Instagram: @jraemusic
Twitter: @jraemusic

Learn more about Jillian Rae at: https://www.jillianraemusic.com/

Pick up a “Support Rochester Music” Shirt

Want to enjoy the concert in style and show your support for the Rochester music at the same time? Order a “Support Rochester Music” T-Shirt along with your ticket and pick it up at the show.

Available Colors

• • • Charcoal Shirt | White Ink
    • Blue Shirt | White Ink

Available Sizes

• • • XL
    • Large
    • Medium
    • Small

Sponsors, Partners, and Friends

Thank you to our sponsors and partners: The Current, Thesis Beer Project, Northern Sun Productions, Cameo at the Castle, Fox & Fern Floral, The Med City Beat, Fairfield Inn & Suites, The Rochester Posse,  Pure Rock Studios, Café Steam, Wondercloud Media, and Carpet Booth Studios