Gregory Alan Isakov centered, resolute at Gold Hill Inn: review

Singer songwriter Gregory Alan Isakov has had a busy year. Coming off his 2016 collaborative record with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, including their two sold-out January shows at Boettcher Concert Hall in Denver, Isakov has gone on to play 58 shows in 17 countries before coming home for his annual Christmas Eve shows this past weekend at the eponymous and kitschy Gold Hill Inn.

Together, Isakov and another Boulder mainstay, Reed Foehl of Acoustic Junction/Fool's Progress, mark eleven years of strumming and singing to increasingly large handfuls of ardent fans inside what Isakov describes as "the coolest warp zone cabin ever."

Leave it to the poet to sum up its power of simplicity. The refuge of this old inn — this warp zone-perched just ten miles outside of Boulder — is unmistakable. In a year of dizzying news cycles and spurious accusations coming from the highest office in the land, its safe to say we all need a break. To be able to slow down enough to ingest the way, say, the moon casts a shadow, particularly when the country is quite literally on fire, is just the reprieve we needed. And the 200 people who crammed themselves into this small space for back to back nights could not agree more.

Heavily bundled and polite, the wide age-ranging audience arrived early to feast from the $12 front-room buffet and sipped bar drinks before settling into folded chairs for the 8 p.m. concert. Many of attendees making the trek up the hill for the better part of a decade exchanged hugs and handshakes with others, while some first timers held back, taking in the sweetness of the scene. Regardless of circumstance, everyone knew how lucky they were to be a part of an evening that sold out online in under five minutes.

Foehl took the stage for over an hour, bringing in the talented Steve Varney aka Kid Reverie (banjo/guitar) and Jeb Bowes (violin) both with whom he had just headlined at eTown the night before. Foehl strummed and sang steadily, stopping every so often to talk with the crowd. "John Prine, if you don't know him, you don't know him," he said of the folk music legend. His Grammy-nominated song Fly, written for Lee Ann Womack, resonated strongly with the audience, a poignant song about yearning for a departed love. Foehl is undeniably talented. His cut-straight-to-the-bone lyrics have a compelling effect on his listener. Yet his power lies more in his songwriting less in the quality of his vocalization, which at times can lack dynamism.

After a brief intermission, Isakov took the stage, walking up in his usual unassuming way and wearing a festive red knit cap. He took a moment to select the right guitar and strummed a few bars of something unmistakably Christmasy. Taking a time to praise Foehl, he greeted the crowd gratefully, then launched into She Always Takes it Black, the last B-side song from The Weatherman (2013), a tender tune about the vagaries of love. After playing three more rather somber tunes, and sensing that he was perhaps being too serious, he joked with the audience saying, "Don't worry, they aren't all like this." He took several requests across his increasing cannon of albums, interspersing them with four new lighter-toned songs from a new project slated to be released sometime in 2018. Isakov came out for an encore featuring a couple of John Prine covers before closing with Foehl on a perfectly-harmonized Spanish Pipedream.

Overall, Isakov came across as centered and resolute, steadily belting his lyrics into the microphone and sending chills down the spines of everyone in the room. It's clear to me after seeing his eyes that his busy year has impacted him and yet he so easily found communion with his fans in the room-many of whom are likely considered family at this point. For the entirely of his set, the space was quiet enough that you could occasionally hear the lug sole of his boot tapping gently against the wood planked floor-the folk equivalent of being able to hear a pin drop.

And there were potential distractions. Throughout the night, Apple Watches illuminated the room, perhaps alerting its wearer to the latest presidential Tweet, but even their owners paid no mind as they sat in near rapture, hanging hopefully on Isakov's every word.