Live Music: Ari Hest

Tonight I saw Ari Hest in concert. By "concert" I mean a real small venue out in the middle of nowhere. One of those places where a musician would need to have somewhat of a following in order to convince his fans that they should drive out to see him.

The stage was beautiful. It had a cascading backdrop of lights that transitioned between colors: Blue, green, purple, yellow. The movement of one color into another created these beautiful poignant moments the flowed with the music.

I first saw Ari years ago, when I was just getting into the singer-songwriter, boy-with-a-guitar genre. He had barely finished his first CD. It was a great show, in another cool venue that was most certainly not in the middle of nowhere, but nonetheless closed down soon after and is no more.

So I've been on his mailing list ever since. And this week I got a notice that he was playing near me, and I thought, I have to go.

It was such a great show. His voice is rugged, his songs are deep. He's comfortable on stage. His music can really wrap itself around you.

One of his songs, wow, I have to tell you... it was positively beautiful. It left me beaming. He said it's a duet he wants to have with Norah Jones. Someday. If he ever gets to meet her. In the meantime, he sang her parts for her in falsetto. Very funny. It's a beautiful song called "I Got You", and it's one of the best love songs I've heard in a long while. I can't wait to listen to it over and over. You can listen to it by clicking here or just watch the actual performance below. He'll let you know when Norah is supposed to jump in.

The nice part of the evening was I got to meet him afterwards, and he signed my CD. It's a new EP he has out called, Guilty Hearts. The new big album gets released in the Fall.