BrightestYoungThings: LiveDC: Junior League / Justin Jones / Luke Brindley @ 930 Club

all photos: Rachel Eisley
all words: Matthew Malamud

If only beauty pageants were this entertaining, I thought standing there last Friday at the 9:30 Club among the crowd gathered for a live performance by the Junior League Band.

When lead singer and banjo player Lissy Rosemont and fiddler Sadie Dingfelder stepped out onto the stage for the first time and into the bright lights, Rosemont in a pink tulle ball gown and Dingfelder in an emerald green cocktail dress, they looked more like delicate beauty queens than rock stars.

However, the joke was on me because Junior League quickly got down to boogieing, the four other band members – Brandon Kalber on bass, John Lee on guitar, Ian Thompson on drums and Colin McCormick on trombone – dressed ubiquitously in plaid shirts and jeans as visual reminders that that’s what they came to the 9:30 Club to do: get down and boogie.

Junior League got the crowd gyrating their hips with a foot-stomping rendition of “Cripple Creak,” a traditional bluegrass tune. Then, with the crowd clearly enthused, the musicians made their way through a set list that included more traditional numbers, original songs by Rosemont such as “Brother” and newly-inked “Don’t Be a Stranger
Tonight,” and a cover of the Beatles’ “I’ve Got a Feeling.”

You can’t pin down the Junior League Band’s sound. Though rooted in Bluegrass, the musicians borrow from all over the sonic spectrum. Throughout the evening, they traded in Charlie Daniels-esque fiddle breakdowns, Jimmy Hendrix guitar riffs, Dixieland Jazz trombone solos, bass and drum playing a la Jefferson Airplane and banjo picking that
would make Earl Scruggs proud.

Call it what you want, but don’t call it boring. The Junior League Band kept the crowd tapping their toes, slapping their knees, swaying their hips and nodding their heads well into the night and left them wanting more.

Luke Brindley opened the evening on acoustic guitar with a stripped down set of mellow vocals and resonating melodies, easing in the audience for the fine array of musical talent to come.

Then, D.C.-based Justin Jones and the Driving Rain livened things up with their refreshing combination of alt-country ballads and rock n’ roll. Jones’s vocals sailed over the drums and bass and electric guitars, weaving tales of life, love and loss. For levity, Jones peppered his act with hilarious tales of past performance blunders.