Last Wednesday night after stuffing my face with some delicious nachos at Sneaky Dee's, I had the pleasure of seeing Mike Hopkins play at the Magpie. Quite the change of scenery and atmosphere. This show came as a complete suprise to me. I have seen Mike play with the Formula in the past, which is a funk/pop outfit and alot of fun to watch. This particular night at the Magpie was a CD release for the Spanish Waiter - which I liken to Baroque era court musicians. It was amazing and completely unexpected. Mike is like a chameleon, he can play any genre and be a master in every one.
I have seen him play so many genres of music and only now have I learned he has been trained in classical music. This performance was solo and featured a very gifted violin player (who is actually not featured on the album - Drew Jurecka plays on the album and is equally as talented), clarinet and drums on some of the tunes. The very talented Marshall Bureau on drums of course. Seeing Mike's fingers move so fast that he had to shake his hands out after each song - this is passion. And you could feel it in the product. To describe it, I would say it is like a court musician from the 16th century who has traveled to the future to pick up pop sensibilities and landed in 2008.
Check it out on beastridge...