Country music greats Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell and Richard Thompson (in beret at far left) rocked The Paramount in Huntington March 24, 2013. (Long Island Press/Spencer Rumsey)

The talent on stage at The Paramount in Huntington Sunday, March 24 was truly jaw-dropping. Grammy-winners Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell were joined on the bill by Grammy-nominee Richard Thompson, who’d recently been awarded an Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth.

We’re talking Nashville royalty and a London luminary. Here, on tour, was the best that country music has to offer and one of the greatest living guitarists—all still performing at the top of their musical careers, taking risks, seizing the moment, spanning tradition and stretching the genres.

It was a magical evening of bittersweet harmonies, honky-tonkin’ rhythms, raw-boned Celtic rock, electrifying solos, broken hearts, healed hearts, lofty lyrics, aching metaphors, pathos, dark humor, black coffee and “Tragedy,” at least in the form of a wonderfully moving song co-written by Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, touring together for the first time in almost 40 years.

Harris, now a celebrated silver-haired songstress, first heard Crowell’s “Bluebird Wine” when she was looking for songs to perform on her first solo record, back in 1974, a year after her famous partner Gram Parsons had passed away. She tracked him down, and he joined her Hot Band for several years. Some of the original members of that ensemble rejoined Harris and Crowell on their new album, Old Yellow Moon, which just came out in February, and features a slightly revised “Bluebird Wine” to accommodate the passage of time—and the wisdom gained—since Crowell first wrote the song when he was barely 22.

Now 62, Crowell, once married to Roseanne Cash, has had his songs covered by his ex-father-in-law Johnny Cash, Etta James and even the Grateful Dead. Harris is a highly regarded song hoarder, and together in the hallowed confines of Huntington’s Paramount, they did inspired versions of Waylon Jennings’ “Dreaming My Dreams,” Matraca Berg’s poignant “Back When We Were Beautiful,” Kris Kristofferson’s mournful “Chase the Feeling,” and “Hanging Up My Heart,” a song by Hank DeVito that Sissy Spacek recorded for Coal Miner’s Daughter. Harris gave a special shout-out to Patti Scialfa, you-know-who’s wife, before doing a haunting version of her 1993 song, “Spanish Dancer.”

Judging from the fans milling outside the Paramount before the concert began, Harris and Crowell were probably the top draw, but Richard Thompson certainly had his share of aficionados, who’d come to revel in the power of his new album, Electric, his 14th studio recording, which was produced by Buddy Miller and recorded at Miller’s Nashville studio. Named one of Rolling Stone Magazine’s “Top 20 Guitarists of All Time,” Thompson is a master of raw, Celtic-edged rock and finger-picking fluidity. He’d joined Sandy Denny in Fairport Convention in the late 1960s, played on a couple of tracks of the legendary late-artist Nick Drake, and gone on to garner critical acclaim with Linda Thompson (now his ex-wife) on the album Shoot Out the Lights.

The previous time I’d caught Thompson at this venue on New York Avenue it was known as the Imac, and he was a solo acoustic act. This time he brought his talented trio along: Taras Prodaniuk on bass and Michael Jerome on drums. They rocked, doing cut after cut from the new album to scintillating effect, and, given the sound system at The Paramount, they were superb. Thompson did set aside his electric guitars (he used several) to perform “Vincent Black Lightning, 1952,” his classic ballad about Red Molly and her ne’er-do-well beau James, who bequeaths her his “fine motorbike” should fate break his stride. All in all, Thompson showed his virtuosic dexterity to perfection.

Emmylou Harris brought him back onstage later in her set with Crowell, saying she was honored to be touring with one of “the greatest guitarists of my generation.” Thompson, in a black beret, and Crowell, in a brown cowboy hat, could both bring haberdashery’s headgear back in style. The British folk-rock artist smiled mischievously as he joined in a hard-driving version of Crowell’s song, “I Ain’t Living Long Like This.” And when Thompson traded incendiary licks with Harris’ hotshot Aussie lead guitarist, Jedd Hughes, the audience roared.

For the encore, Harris and Crowell did Crowell’s evocative tribute to the Mississippi bayous, “Stars on the Water,” and took their band to the 31st floor of Gram Parson’s classic “Sin City,” where “your gold-plated door won’t keep out the Lord’s burning rain.”

Inside The Paramount on March 24th, if there was any rain that night, it felt like teardrops of joy.

To check out a calendar listing upcoming performances and concerts at Huntington’s The Paramount, CLICK HERE.

Indie visionaries Circa Survive rocked a packed house at The Paramount in Huntington March 19 along with Minus the Bear and Now Now. (Photo: Dan O’Regan/Long Island Press)

The house lights drop. More than 1,500 people scream at the top of their lungs. Shadowy figures ghost around the stage, led by small handheld beams of light. The apparitions of Minus the Bear take their positions before the first four twangy chords of “Steel and Blood” split the darkness. Swelling waves of music roll over the crowd like a tsunami of light and sound. Piercing beams of red and blue punch through the masses. Ear-to-ear grins are only broken to shout back the lines to each chorus. This moment could pass for an encore, yet the show’s only just begun.

Progressive indie rockers Circa Survive and electronic indie-rock heroes Minus the Bear packed out The Paramount in Huntington Tuesday, March 19 in support of their Waves Overhead tour. The night was filled with crowd-pleasing high-energy sets from all—though I did regrettably miss Minnesota indie darlings Now Now due to a traffic jam on the Sagtikos Parkway (luckily I’d already caught them two days earlier in Poughkeepsie, where they killed). None disappointed at The Paramount—a show to remember, indeed.

The first three songs of Minus the Bear’s set—“Steel and Blood,” “The Fix” and “Secret Country”—were knockout punches, one right after the other and ignited a frenzied uproar among the sea of 20-somethings hoisting each other into the air and crawling on top of each other like penned animals.

Epic roto-tom hits from drummer Erin Tate on “Secret Country” boomed over the crowd, just before lead singer Jake Snider repeatedly shouted the line, “We forget where we are!” atop the ebb and flow of its conclusion.

The crowd clapped on-beat to “Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse” before lead guitarist Dave Knudson let loose, the notes glistening and sparkling to rival the dazzling glow of blue, red, purple and yellow lights behind him.

Not a single member of the band sat still through their entire set. Bassist Cory Murchy remained in a state of constant motion before flashing a stern thumbs-up to the crowd in-between most songs, a gesture always returned by the fans on his side of the stage. Murchy head-banged like a madman, flipping his stringy hair before sauntering from the front to the back of the stage, hammering out the most fluid and dynamic bass lines of the night and heading back to the crowd for another firm thumbs-up.

Knudson’s movements were like a haywire windup toy, his ridged head bopping from his tower-like stance almost enough to distract from his delicate guitar work. Knudson preferred to play his solos directly to the crowd; standing, oftentimes, right on the edge of the stage, eyes closed, with fans grabbing and reaching for a piece of the action.

“There’s something emotional and human about [performing],” Snider told me between sips of Jack Daniels in his Paramount dressing room just after Minus the Bear’s set.

Just as he emptied the bottle we were interrupted by a knock at the door. A short brunette poked her head into the dressing room holding up a fresh bottle of the good stuff.

“Oh yeah,” Snider told her. “Amen, thank you so much.”

He paused for a moment to admire the bottle, and after collecting his thoughts, resumed.

“It’s kind of a tribal thing, playing music in front of people. You kind of want to connect with [the crowd] on some level and I think that when you’re enjoying it… I mean obviously, that’s going to be the best.”

Two thirds of the way through Minus the Bear’s set, a figure in a black hoodie rigged up another microphone on the right side of the stage before vocalist Heather Duby, backing vocalist on the band’s latest studio album, Infinity Overhead, joined the fray.

Duby filled out a stunning three-part harmony with keyboardist and backing vocalist Alex Rose on “Into the Mirror” and “Toska,” a song Snider says is his current favorite to play live.

Two slam-dunk songs off their second studio album, 2005’s Menos el Oso [Spanish for Minus the Bear]—“Pachuca Sunrise” and “Drilling”—finished the set, leaving the audience reeling.

“Drilling” positively electrified the crowd. Some red-faced fans screamed every word while jumping with their fists clenched in the air and radiating beaming smiles. The not-quite-punk, not-quite-emo kids applauded too soon, exposing the casual Minus the Bear fans that were unaware of the band’s fondness for the “fake ending.” “Drilling” faded out and resurrected twice before the band ultimately left the stage to a roar of applause and the house lights.

“It’s all a part of the dynamics of our songs,” Murchy told me during a pre-interview from his tour bus just before a show in Burlington, Vt. on March 14. “You want to try and use those to really try and catch the listener. Makes for a good song, ya know?”

“One more song!” some shouted.

“Four more songs!” screamed others.

From the perspective of the balcony, fans below resembled a stormy swelling ocean, ebbing and flowing with black t-shirts and hoodies, bleached hair and side bangs rolling and cresting to the sonic avalanche of sound. Watching this celebratory swirl made me realize just how much a venue can impact the performance.

Just two days prior, similar waves of kids sporting homemade neon green spray-painted scribbles proclaiming “Circa Survive” waited for the opening act in the packed, tiny The Chance, tucked between large warehouses in downtown Poughkeepsie. DIY punk rockers bashed and convulsed their way around the floor throughout the night, though the scene was less a group ocean of teenage celebration and more a stone-cold gaze supplemented with a handful of loose cannons who just wanted to thrash. The crowd had little to no room to make it even to the bathrooms, let along organize a mosh pit like that inside The Paramount.

The grime on the walls of The Chance stands as testament to the more than 40 years of live shows it had endured; battle scars worn proudly like a soldier after a triumphant war. Ancient Egyptian sarcophagi adorn both stage walls and watch over the crowd occupying a two-tiered floor area below.

Now Now’s set that night began with two girls strapping on their Fender Telecasters and a guy with the pompadour to end all pompadours sitting behind a drum kit. The crowd gave them the obligatory applause as they tuned up their amplifiers and positioned their Macbook.

“No bass?” shouted someone from the crowd over the first few bars of the outfit’s first song.

After long it was clear that the band’s supplemental tracks would provide more than enough bass for the three-piece.

“We had [a bassist] a long long time ago,” Now Now’s drummer Bradly Hale told me backstage at The Paramount, as thunderous bass from the show boomed and echoed through the backstage lounge. “I record all the bass parts and it’s a lot of effort to teach someone all the parts and it’s hard to find someone you’re cool with being around for this long.”

The applause rose as the set progressed, singer/guitarist Cacie Dalager letting her fluffy brown bangs cover her eyes after tossing her black beanie to the side of the stage, echoes of Kurt Cobain’s signature “Cousin-It” look.

The inclusion of a backing track allowed the band to incorporate notes well below the standard low-E of a four-string bass—low moans bellowing from the onstage sub-woofers on stage and rattling the walls; less of a sound and more of an intense vibration.

Dual female vocals and hypnotizing harmonies gave their set a soft touch that set them apart from their all-male touring mates.

“I don’t feel like a female-fronted band at all,” Dalager told me from her perch atop a kitchen counter backstage at The Paramount just after Circa Survive’s set. “We have girls in the band, but the band started with Brad and I, and so in my mind, we’re just a duo, now a trio. The only time I really notice it is sometimes we’re on tour and I’m like, ‘Whoa, we are literally the only girls on this tour.’ But I don’t ever think about it other than physical number of people on a tour.”

Now Now exited The Chances’ stage to thunderous applause. Somewhere in the sweaty adolescent chaos, the kid who couldn’t understand a band without a bassist surely applauded, too.

As I leaned on the railing of The Paramount’s mezzanine section and looked out over the crowd, I couldn’t help realize the shared connection between the kids packing The Chance, just two days earlier, and those here, now, unleashing their fury and devotion to the same bands, the same songs, for the most part, the same show. The two sets of fans were the same, I thought, but also different. Those before me now are Long Islanders—a dedicated breed that sacrifices sleep on a work night for a few hours of pure, unbridled rock and roll.

And although Circa Survive sat at the top of the billing for this tour, Minus the Bear could have been as well—their set gave crowds at both venues simply sheer electrified sonic thrill. What a magnificent pairing.

Crowd surfers climbed and were tossed to and fro throughout the sets at The Paramount. Large men in highlighter-green shirts lined the barricades, catching airborne fans hurled too close to the talent.

With 1,555 adoring fans screaming in unison, it was hard to distinguish Circa Survive’s lyrics from the mouth of the singer from those of the audience, or make out even what the first three songs were. Singer Anthony Green’s sterling tenor eventually won that battle, beaming out of the speakers and inspiring riot-like conditions on the floor.

“When we started the band, Anthony and I started it together and it was a dream-come-true really,” Circa Survive’s lead guitarist Colin Frangicetto told me over the phone from his tour bus in Stroudsburg, Pa. three days after the Paramount gig. “I always thought he had one of the coolest voices I’ve ever heard.”

The mass of reaching arms and outstretched hands evoked visions of a zombie herd a la The Walking Dead as Green stalked the front of the stage, gripping his mic with both hands out to the crowd and swaying like a rock-and-roll snake charmer.

One fan is successful in slipping around a bouncer and reaching Green just after being carried about the crowd like a rag doll—the kid’s grin sure to not come off any time soon.

Green’s super-sonic voice combined with Frangicetto’s on-point guitar work and the band’s thrashing rhythms making for a much bumpier ride than the mellow swells of Minus the Bear.

“The Long Island show was fantastic,” Frangicetto told me. “Super-high energy you know, just really—when you’re on stage at that place it’s just, there’s nothing b-market or half-assed about it, it’s just a real amazing rock and roll show at a venue that is gorgeous.”

The night, like any great rock show, was not with out incident, however.

Circa Survive stopped abruptly in the middle of their set, as bouncers swam toward a handful of fans in white tank tops. Others pointed to one man in particular, mouthing, “Him, it was him.” A short girl with bleach-blonde hair stood amid the fray, mascara running down her face as a man stood over her trying his best to ensure she was okay.

The scene caught the attention of Green, who began to try and mediate the situation from the stage. As he asked what happened and squinted to try and see into the crowd, the soggy-eyed girl faked a smile and flashed a thumbs-up. Her mouth formed silent words resembling, “It’s okay—just an accident.”

“Just an accident?” Green boomed through the PA. “Aw, it’s okay. You come to a rock show, you’re gonna get popped now and then.”

With that, the band started up where they left off. The crowd resumed their punk-rock acrobatics and three of the bouncers stood their ground in the sea of adolescent angst.

The joy and the love that filled The Paramount that evening was palpable. The smiles and shouts of celebration filled the room with light and joy that rivaled the volume of the music itself.

This is rock music at its finest. This is a Long Island rock show. This, truly, is a night to remember.

For more event and performance dates at The Paramount in Huntington, check out their schedule HERE.

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling

The next installment of The Paramount Comedy Series returns Sunday, Feb. 17 with Long Island’s own Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling leading the laughs and sharing the stage with “The Young Comedians,” four up-and-coming (and younger) jokesters: Joey Giarratano, Scott Schendlinger, Chris DiStefano and Harrison Greenbaum.

Huntington’s The Paramount has been hosting a bring-down-the-house comedy show every month since early 2011, blending local talent with international and celebrity comic acts. The list of past headliners includes such funnyman and women as Gary Gulman, Maria Walsh and Louie Anderson.

Martling, a Mineola native, fondly remembers downtown Huntington as the area where he got his start in comedy and subsequently helped kickstart comedy on Long Island.

“I recorded my first album a few doors away from [The Paramount],” he tells the Long Island Press. “I think that’s kind of interesting.”

Martling toured with his rock band Off Hour Rockers until 1979, when he decided to start telling his dirty jokes on stage. Two comedy records later, and in 1983 Martling sent a copy of his work to a then little-known radio DJ named Howard Stern.

“He loved them,” Martling recalls. “I went in on his program and then I went to the moon.”

These are just some of the revealing (and hysterical) details Martling shared recently with the Press during an interview that left this reporter in absolute stitches. Below are a few additional tidbits—for much more, check out the show Feb. 17. Trust us, you’ll be laughing all week long.

LONG ISLAND PRESS: What were the early days of Long Island Comedy like?

JACKIE: “After my band broke up I played shows on my own. I met a couple comedians and I invited them to come down to my gigs. I’m talking about Rob Bartlett, who’s on Imus now, Eddie Murphy, who of course you know who he is, and Bob Nelson. These guys would all come down [from New York City] because there was no place to get stage time and Richard M. Dixon had a place in the late ’70s but he wouldn’t pay us, so me and my buddy Richie had the idea to set up my microphone and my amplifier and speakers I used when I played gigs by myself.

“We started doing shows and bringing people out from the city. We had all the big ones, you know, Seinfeld and Carol Leifer and Dennis Wolfberg. They all came out because they’d make money. And we actually started comedy on Long Island in 1979 at Cinnamon. I started putting up shows everywhere. There isn’t a bar on Long Island where I didn’t have a comedy show. All the major people from New York were going around making five dollars a set, or a hamburger. They’d come out to Long Island and make 40 or 50 dollars. It was like they died and went to heaven. The audiences were great, and after a year Richie and his brother opened the East Side Comedy Club.”

LIP: What are the challenges for a comedian trying to work on Long Island?

JACKIE: “The thing is, you need hard bark on ya. That’s the important thing. It’s so funny because when your start out and when you start to get the least bit known, a lot of the same stuff happens. You get interviewed and people ask you the same questions and you get sick of saying ‘I don’t know,’ so you get to making an answer for everything. People always say, ‘Jackie I want to be a comedian, what should I do?’

“I got to where I had a stock thing that I said. I’d tell them, ‘Well don’t do it, give up, you don’t have a chance.’

“It was funny, because it wasn’t just about blowing people off; there was a real reason there. If telling someone you don’t have a chance is enough to stop you, you really haven’t got a chance. [Comedy] is such a tough thing to do and you’re going to hit so many obstacles that if me telling you that you haven’t got a chance is enough to stop you, you might as well give up.”

LIP: What was your first impression of Stern?

JACKIE: “He was very tall. [Stern and the cast] couldn’t have been nicer, they treated me so well, and they plugged the hell out of Governor’s Comedy Club and my joke phone line. At the time I was working in Levittown at Governor’s and all of a sudden here I am at 30 Rock looking at pictures of Carson and Donahue and I’m going up sitting there in the big time. They were funny and it was fun. I always got a good laugh, so it was a perfect wedding.”

LIP: Why radio?

JACKIE: “I had no intention of being a radio guy, that totally happened by accident. But I love it. It’s so immediate. You could write a movie and in a year or two, see your work come to fruition. You write a TV show in a couple of months, you get to see your work come to life. You’re a comedian and in a best-case scenario you can come up with something that morning and tell it on stage that night.

“I’d be sitting next to Howard and an idea comes to my head and I’d write it down and put it in front of him. Five seconds later he reads it and immediately 15 million people are laughing. It is so immediate and personal and in your face just knowing that you’re telling jokes on Jackie’s Joke Hunt and there’s a couple hundred thousand people listening, it’s just so fun.”

The Paramount’s Box Office is located at 370 New York Ave., Huntington, NY 11743; 631-673-7300. The Paramount Comedy Series Presents: Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling & the Young Comedians Sunday, Feb. 17 at 8 p.m.; Doors open at 7 p.m. For tickets, click here. The Feb. 17 date is a rescheduling from its original Saturday, Feb. 9 date, due to inclement weather. Refunds are available through point of purchase if unable to attend the rescheduled date. For questions, please contact The Paramount at 6310673-7300.