Memorable music: These Vermont concerts in 2022 left big impressions

Lists of best concerts of the year are always a little tricky, especially when they’re compiled by one person (in this case, me). A best-concert list is only as thorough as the writer’s ability to get to as many concerts as possible.

Life, of course, intervenes. I got to close to 50 shows this year, but not nearly as many as I had hoped. Still, that’s not such a bad total considering how impacted by COVID-19 the concert industry has been. I’m just glad I can go to any concerts after the past couple of years.

I’m not considering this chronological list a summation of the best concerts in Vermont in 2022, but a list of memorable performances — ones that’ll kick around in my mind for a long while, and ones that might just do the same in yours if you had the good fortune to attend. Some were in front of thousands of people, some performers played to only a couple dozen, but all made me happy I was there.

Anais Mitchell

Feb. 19, the Flynn, Burlington

Vermont’s folk-music ambassador — and holder of Tony and Grammy awards for her remarkable born-in-Vermont Broadway musical “Hadestown” — played songs from her new self-titled album that left the audience in the theater listening with full attention. That rapt crowd erupted with raucous applause when called for, such as when Mitchell and Eric D. Johnson (from her folk trio and the night’s opening act, Bonny Light Horseman) combined on a stunning rendition of Dire Straits’ “Romeo & Juliet.” Mitchell was always wise beyond her years; now just past 40, her experience has caught up to her and her wisdom takes on that much more depth.

Thao

March 25, Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington

The crowd wasn't huge — maybe 300 people in a 700-capacity room — but those who were there were super into it, and Thao and her band (formerly known as Thao and the Get Down Stay Down) reflected that energy right back. This tour for the "Temple" album was supposed to happen in May 2020, the indie-rocker noted, and the whole night felt like she and the crowd needed this huge release of pent-up everything we've all accumulated in the past couple of years. A half-empty room became an intimate party no one wanted to leave.

Acqua Mossa

May 14, Waking Windows festival, Winooski

This Vermont ensemble played one of the most-captivating shows of this perpetually-hip three-day festival, showcasing its slinky, soulful sound. By incorporating dance, Acqua Mossa turned the set at the outdoor rotary stage into an artistic feast for the eyes and ears. And somehow, the film featuring Acqua Mossa that was shown June 4 on four surrounding screens in Contois Auditorium during the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival — part-performance piece, part-trippy and wildly imaginative music video — was maybe even just a little bit cooler.

Dry Cleaning/Thus Love

May 14, Waking Windows festival, Winooski

These were separate concerts on separate stages, but they would become intertwined by night’s end. Following Dry Cleaning’s creative, blistering Waking Windows set at the outdoor main stage, members of Thus Love invited the British art-rockers to their later show inside The Monkey House. I stood near the stage at the Monkey with Dry Cleaning guitarist Tom Dowse and bass player Lewis Maynard, who watched intently as Thus Love played with barely-controlled post-punk energy. The two bands convened outside The Monkey House afterward, and as they gushed about each other’s shows I smelled a tour being born. Sure enough, Brattleboro’s own Thus Love will be opening for Dry Cleaning in Great Britain in early 2023.

More on Thus Love:Meet the next Vermont band ready to make national noise

Unknown Blues Band

June 5, Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, Big Joe’s at Vermont Comedy Club

You could argue that this group fronted by sax legend Big Joe Burrell was the match that lit the musical fire in Burlington in the late 1970s, a blaze that still rages in the city nearly half a century later. Burrell is gone (unless you count his statue on Church Street), but original members Paul Asbell and Chas Eller carried on with trumpet player and charismatic vocalist Joey Sommerville filling the Big Joe role expertly. They performed this fun-loving, sold-out set in familiar turf: the former location of Hunt's, a club where Burrell and the Unknown Blues Band drew huge crowds all those years ago. It was as if the ghost of Unknown Blues Band past joined the current group to make the sum of its parts seem infinite.

Xenia Rubinos

June 5, ArtsRiot, Burlington

This set for a too-small crowd, during but separate from the jazz festival, generated a magnetic energy all its own. Rubinos combines a classically-trained musician’s compositional skills with a strong sense of theatrics and passionate, intelligent songs built on a complex foundation of R&B, hip hop and pop. She accomplishes something so hard to do in the music world: She’s both arty and primal, giving the former a booster shot of juice and the latter a layer of lacquer that smooths the jagged edges.

Bobby Rush

June 8, Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, Flynn Space

The 87-year-old blues veteran gave a pair of Burlington Discover Jazz Festival shows in the intimate basement venue known as FlynnSpace. His singing, guitar playing and harmonica flourishes were top-notch. The real highlights, though, were his stories of 70 years of ups and down in the world of blues. He delivered those tales with detail, humor and more than a dash of old-school blues bawdiness. It felt like Rush took the audience for a little ol’ spin in his musical time machine.

George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic

June 10, Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, Waterfront Park

A theme of this year’s Burlington Discover Jazz Festival was about paying tribute to musical ancestors, with the concerts by the Unknown Blues Band and Bobby Rush leading into this performance by legendary funkmeister George Clinton. He’s 81 and leaves most of the heavy lifting to his band of old friends and younger performers, but just by being at this high-energy celebration, the pilot of the mothership gave his blessing to more than half a century of weird, wild and groundbreaking sounds.

The National

July 19, Shelburne Museum

COVID-19 scuttled this indie-rock band’s plan to play the Shelburne Museum “Concerts on the Green” series almost exactly two years earlier. Music can be deterred, it turns out, but not stopped. The National arrived on the museum grounds armed with catchy, cerebral tunes, Matt Berninger’s hypnotic baritone and an ability to form a community that belies the band’s vivid but slightly detached music. Berninger spent a surprising amount of time circulating buoyantly through the crowd, eschewing the inherent risks during an ongoing pandemic in the interest of creating unity after two years of sometimes crippling isolation.

Marcie Hernandez

Sept. 25, Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington

The Burlington singer-songwriter began the night by showing her new artfully-made video trilogy, “Tres Pedazos.” Then she played a set of heartfelt music with lyrics delivered in English and Spanish, with her engaging stage presence on full, confident display. Those of us in the crowd were watching an emerging Vermont singer-songwriter mature into an artist in complete command of her skills right before our very eyes.

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Vermont music: These concerts in 2022 left big impressions