Review: THE BOOMER HILL BAND at MAD House 101 Restaurant & Bar

Article written by Guest Writer Owen Dodd of Ouchita Baptist University

This summer, I’ve attended several performances at the Murphy Arts District in El Dorado, and all have been exceptional in performance and public response. After a certain amount of time being in the event space, you learn how to seek out the quainter moments, the ones which really tell you something about the audience, the performer, the human experience. So, it should be emphatically surprising that, starting this article, I feel a formidable dose of writer's block. It’s not at all that I found myself bored with the performance; far from it, in fact. Rather, I found the night to be so remarkably distinctive, so exact in its happenings, that I feel the phenomena went far beyond individuals present, including the audience, the musicians, and most of all, myself. On July 25th, Mad House 101 hosted something irreplicable and incommunicable; They hosted THE BOOMER HILL BAND.  

The first of my appreciations was Boomer’s disarming joy on stage. His shiny shades framed his face with character. With the golden ornaments on his glasses, every expression he made fixed itself as a moment to be painted, a moment to be distinguished from his friends and the crowd, and even to be distinguished from Boomer himself. Though he was humble, his performance demanded respect, and he certainly got it from me. Undoubtedly Boomer’s signature was his well-rounded voice. While this may sound like a base level appreciation, it most certainly is not. More often than not, people forget the many aspects of the voice: control, volume, intonation, phrasing, breathing, and so many more. Some singers might have astounding control and volume, but struggle with pitch consistency. Some may find phrasing and breathing to come naturally but have difficulty pushing their lungs to project. Boomer held a royal flush so to speak. He unceasingly exhibited talent and experience (not to mention character) through his two-hour performance and did so effortlessly. This effortlessness was due to the fact that Boomer took short breaks in order to preserve his stamina. Whenever he needed a break, his team knew exactly when to take over so he would be ready for the next entrance.  

The guitarist, Matt Benson, delivered many virtuosic solos throughout the night, and they were always met with considerable yet deserved applause. When I chance to see a guitarist like Matt—namely one who knows their instrument in and out—I find that their solos shape the musical meter differently. In the same way that Boomer innately demanded the attention of the audience from the outset, Matt demanded the audience interpret the rhythm and feel of the music in the way that he wished. If, for instance, Matt wanted to take a musical rest to accentuate the climactic nature of a certain phrase, he would never hesitate to do so. Chromaticism usually followed these gaps in tandem, giving the music some tasteful color and sophistication. This patience with the flow reminded me of a technique I like to call “finding the voice.” To make your playing as expressive as possible, it is often useful to sing or vocalize the melodies that you are playing. The central object is to understand the melody in a more familiar medium—that of the human voice—than the instrument being played. Whether or not Matt was using this technique is largely beside the point; more importantly his playing had the liquidity of a spoken poem. If he wasn’t “finding the voice,” then he didn’t need to for an expressive performance because of how familiar he was with his instrument and the music. Taking pictures of Matt and the other guys, I found that some of them preserved the potency of the music at the time, whether that be through the reactions of the crowd or his fellow bandmates. My favorite of these is one in which Boomer stands smiling out of focus behind Matt, admiring the phrasing and gait.  

It's not often you see a violinist with the intensity of Sam Allen. I know very little of orchestral stringed instruments outside of the fact that they are notorious for their difficulty. But I do know that I hardly ever see a string musician play as fervently as Sam Allen did. With a mustache that rivaled Nietzsche’s, Sam soared above the funky tones of the bass with ornamental rhythms and an apparent confidence to bend pitches, giving the music a distinctly savory tone at all the right spots. You might notice that, in many of the pictures, Sam’s violin bow had some strings that had snapped, swimming through the air like angel’s hair. Like counting the rings of a tree, you could look at the loose strings and guess the age of the night. I, knowing little of the technique needed for this instrument, found myself wondering how many bows he goes through in a week, and more pressingly, how fellow violinists would grade his playing. At points it seemed that the extra strings were adding some difficulty to his playing, causing stringencies and friction every so often. Above all, it was an interesting progression.  

The bassist, Will Oliver, seemed to be younger than the rest of the men, but by no metric less talented. Will seemed to find his enjoyment in finding the groove of the drums and adding the most foundational elements of the progression. However, I also noticed that he was talking with some of the audience off to his right. Perhaps these were his family and friends who had come to see the show and get a hot plate of food. They certainly got said food, but even more was to come. By the end of the night, there had amassed a great crowd of dancing people in the middle of the restaurant who originated from various tables, of which the bassist’s friends were notably present. The best instance of this crowd was a young man and a lady who had begun to dance together, holding each other’s hands and jumping up and down. To my surprise, I had realized that these two were from completely different tables. I doubt they knew each other’s names; I doubt they could have remembered their own in the moment, and why would they want to? What a silly thing to remember at a time like that: an individual signification for the self, a name that undermines the experience of this vaporous, precious, free moment; a name to be discarded and forgotten along with all of the other trivialities and niceties which we don’t care about. In light of the reverie in the middle of the restaurant, I hardly tried to find the most interesting happenings of the night; I didn’t need to. Plainly, I pointed the camera in the direction of those the light adorned and took no less than 900 photos.  

Among these pictures, the most dynamic action came from the drummer, Branden Borden. His sticks struck with accurate arcs of power and exceptional tempo. He never receded in his footing, trusting his diesel-arms and their muscle memory—emphasis on muscle. Throughout the night, he remained calm and collected, and although he was undoubtedly getting a good arm day, he also paced himself with puzzling expertise. All throughout my percussion experience with drums, I have learned that a sure sign of a good drummer is one who refrains from tension and overly stressed playing. Young players, wanting to go faster, faster, faster, rarely realize that the only way to sustainably play as fast as drummers like Brandon is through slow (pathetically slow) practice. Admittedly, I still struggle with this lesson, but watching musicians like Brandon seems to revitalize the love for learning the instrument instead of loving the idea of being a great performer. Taking pictures of Brandon I could hardly find a time when his arms weren’t a blur, and even then, his sticks looked less like sticks and more like fans of blue light, going this way and that, reflecting the LED’s overhead.  

Joanna Benson, the guitarist’s wife, told me after the show that she had never seen response to the Boomer Hill Band like that of July 25th . Although these musicians are utterly talented and refreshing in their personality, I don’t doubt her. Even with amazing performances like that of the band, it’s still laughably difficult to make a crowd forget about things that don’t really matter. For that to happen, the environment is of dramatic importance. Mad House definitely pulled its weight and provided everything the Boomer Hill Band needed for a dynamic and vibrant crowd: knowledgeable techs, hospitable employees, tasty drinks, and damn good food. Although I was planning to stop writing for the summer near the time of this event, The Boomer Hill Band has made me reconsider. I want more experiences like that: those where I can see humans being human, those where I see people enter and, at least in some capacity, forget about their frustrations at the sound of good music.  

On that note, be sure to visit the Boomer Hill Band’s Facebook, where they post about upcoming performances. Like my pictures and criticism? Visit my Instagram at owen_dodd_, where I post photography and my personal music taste. To learn more about upcoming events at the Murphy Arts District, visit their Calendar. Upcoming events include The Avett Brothers with Blackberry Smoke, Train with Edwin McCain, and Ashley McBryde on August 23rd, August 27th, and October 2nd respectively. 

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