To put it mildly… I was skeptical. I have been a die hard Blind Melon fan since early high school and I honestly believed that Shannon Hoon could not be replaced. Perhaps he never truly will be, but Travis Warren, the band’s new singer, was amazing last night in Nashville.
These songs are too good not to be played and I’m not sure there can be anyone better to sing them than Travis Warren. This guy can sing! His voice filled the Cannery Ballroom with ease and carried these (notably hard to sing) songs like a pro.
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Link to photo on flickr of the “yellow house” referred to in Blind Melon’s song “Sleepyhouse” from their debut cd. Too bad it’s not yellow anymore.
The Sleepyhouse is what the band named the house they lived in prior to recording Blind Melon in 1991. It was in Durham, North Carolina.
Shannon: It meant more for us to have a group that had unity and people to lean on if you were fucking up. We established it there in North Carolina, which is priceless. We caught up on all that sleep we lost in L.A.
Rogers: Staying up all night, then sleeping half the day away then getting up then you hear someone start playing then you move down to the living room then everybody congregates for a few hours on end. It gets to be really productive. There’s nothing in Durham so we got a lot done.
Christopher: Living in that house for months was like being in a band for five years.
(information courtesy http://www.blindmelon.org/songlist/sleepyhouse.htm)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dojoklo/2104410186/
Good article about the band who influenced me more than probably any other band in history… courtesy Nashville Scene… RIP SHANNON HOON!!!
Blind Melon somehow managed to be a mainstream band with a cult following. Whereas millions of people loved hit single “No Rain”—and perhaps millions more became sick of it and wanted to wring the neck of that spunky little bee girl—there is also a hearty contingent of die-hard fans. And they’re not the hippy-dippy folks you might expect.
Real fans will be more than happy to tell you about how that song was really an anomaly. About how the band’s sophomore album Soup is a twisted, idiosyncratic classic that’s just now getting its due. And—if you’re still listening—they might even point out that “No Rain” is actually a bleak-ass song about mind-numbing depression wrapped in an ironically upbeat package.
Those are the very same people who are raising the biggest eyebrow at this reunion. Over a decade after the demise of frontman Shannon Hoon, the four remaining members of Blind Melon have returned with a new album and a new singer, one who grew up worshipping the very band he now fronts.
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