Bandits on the Run performed at Club Passim on Tuesday. The multi-instrumental trio, made up of Adrian Blake Enscoe, Sydney Shepherd and Regina Strayhorn, is touring behind its latest LP, “Rough Magic.”
Club Passim seemed the perfect venue for the whimsical, almost therapeutic concert. Speaking with the crowd, Strayhorn said, “Club Passim is a place where you can break from the music and talk.” And there’s plenty to talk about. Band members have a lot on their plate. Blake Enscoe and Shepherd have been seen across Broadway, Strayhorn has a world of casting for popular TV networks, and together they juggle music, Broadway and writing their own musicals. To come together as Bandits on the Run, they pushed their side projects to the side and put on one helluva show in Harvard Square.
Shepherd stuck to her cello and vocals; Strayhorn went from belting her heart out to playing melodica and accordion. Blake Enscoe picked his way through a beat-up acoustic guitar, reminiscent of Willie Nelson’s famous six-string Trigger, while playing a suitcase-turned-kickdrum with his heels. The trio delivered three-part harmonies and traded off lead vocals.
After a rendition of “Summertime” by Ella Fitzgerald, the band moved into songs off its new album, starting with ”I am Your Mirror.” The song was written by Strayhorn, who teared up as she shared how it helped her through a death in the family.
The band followed it with “Woods Alone at Night,” bouncing their vocals back and forth. Then came a quick throwback to “the teens,” as Shepherd put it, with the song “Paris.” It sounded not just like the 2010s, but like a cut from a soundtrack – perhaps because it’s a love song inspired by the movie “Titanic,” though written before the band branched out to scoring musicals.
The first song of the night was from a musical: “White Chapel, Red Light,” written for the work in progress “Yukon, Ho!,” exploring the untold stories of black prospectors during the Yukon Gold Rush. The song is about sex workers during the period, Blake Enscoe said, and the band loved the song enough to include it on the album.
The band brought on Nicolai Margulis, from the opening band Goldfishers, to play banjo on “Tilted Universe.” He didn’t disappoint. His solo brought the loudest cheer all night, and Blake Enscoe let out an excited “Yeaaaah!” halfway through the fingerpicked twang. The band brought out all of the Goldfishers for “Back Home.”
“How can you top that?” Blake Enscoe asked. A crowd member yelled back, “Radio!” – so Shepherd broke into the song “Radio” with a megaphone, shortly before Blake Enscoe’s guitar string snapped. He fixed it on stage and started the song over. It was his second string broken of the night; the mishaps brought the crowd and band closer together, adding to the experience with Q&As, jokes and lighthearted speeches. The band ended the show with “Love Pass Through” and an invitation to the audience to sing along.
This review would be incomplete without more about Goldfishers. Deep in Arkansas, Blake Enscoe and Shepherd were principal cast members of “Eugene Onegin: A Bluegrass Musical,” where they met Nikolai Margulis of Goldfishers. They invited Margulis to perform at the Bandits on the Run album release in New York City, and later invited Goldfishers to perform as openers in Boston. Annie Meyer and Mariel Baumgarten, with Margulis, complete the three-piece band. The group, all students at Harvard, has been together since June.
Goldfishers delivered emotional, expressive vocals accompanied by banjo and guitar. The crowd hushed in appreciative wonder. Margulis’ delicate, sometimes atonal banjo tapping created a special ambiance with Baumgarten’s wide vocal range. As Goldfishers left the stage to a standing ovation, Strayhorn noted the similarities between the bands. “We were just like them when we started, in the ’70s,” Shepherd joked.
Bandits on the Run continue its tour along the Northeast before touching base in Alaska for a five-show run. The trio sets sail on the Cayamo Cruise in 2027, alongside Jeff Tweedy, Punch Brothers, Molly Tuttle, Ketch Secor and Suzanne Vega.
