9.8.2010 - Robert Francis
September 10, 2010
Creation Cafe
Indianapolis, IN
Robert Francis’ performance on Wednesday, September 8 was the third installment of the WTTS Emerging Artist Concert Series at Creation Café. We arrived early for this one, and were able to grab seats on the sofas right up front, and settled in with our Upland Brewery Wheat Ale’s. Francis is from L.A., and after the show at Creation Café, he was headed out on tour with Jason Mraz, including a stop at Farm Aid.
Francis’ music belies his age – he’s only 22, but sings the songs of an old soul. Prior to the set, we were warned a few times that the band plays loud, and that we might want to move back. We just thought “Bring it on” and stayed front and center. They were loud, but in a definitely good way. Robert kicked off the set with “Climb a Mountain” followed by “Darkness”, both from his 2009 album “Before Nightfall”. He then entertained the crowd with a story about taping a video for his song “Keep on Running” in Paris – he wanted to be a little outrageous and tell them he wanted a monkey in the video – so needless to say, there’s a monkey in the video. Both “Keep on Running” and “Nightfall” had some great guitar parts in them.
Robert played a couple of new songs for us – “Neighborhood” and “Closest Exit is Behind You” – giving us good reason to look forward to an upcoming album featuring these songs. He then played “Junebug”, which was the iTunes single of the week a while back, and did well in overseas markets. Francis ended his set with a cover of “Dark End of the Street”, first performed by James Carr in the 60’s, and covered by the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello and Aretha Franklin, among many others.
This was definitely a good show – a little more rock and roll than the other singer/songwriters in the Emerging Artist Concert Series, but lots of solid lyrics backing the music. We can’t say enough about this how great it is that WTTS has brought this series to downtown Indy – it’s a great chance to get some up-and-comers more exposure and get listeners excited about this new music.
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