Acoustic fans can’t refuse one last ball

By Mary Alice Blackwell

Published: May 22, 2008

Lance Brenner had a great idea.

The guy who plays in four local bands launched C-Fest to showcase the diversity of Charlottesville’s extraordinary music scene.

The plan — one that has been well received by his fellow musicians and those who like his fellow musicians — was to stage four mini-festivals throughout the C-Fest season. Each would highlight a different genre of music. He lined up the acts. He lined up the sound engineers. He lined up everything that needed lining up. He only had one problem.

The venues keep closing.

The inaugural event, Freakfest, was booked some six months in advance. But when Starr Hill up and closed, Brenner was left scrambling to find his musicians a new home. He renegotiated with a relatively new venue, one that had popped up on the Corner just some four years earlier.

Satellite Ballroom became the new home of the fringe-filled Freakfest this past September. The pop-rock- and hip-hop-influenced Noble Savages followed in December, while the jazz and experimental sounds of Surround Sound took the stage in February.

Coming up Saturday, it’s part four: Acoustic Mafia, featuring some of the best of our acoustic, Americana and roots music players.

Saturday, by the way, also is the last ball for the Ballroom.

Brenner got in just under the wire on this one as now Satellite, too, has lost its space.

It would be a good time to come out and say farewell to the concert hall. Brenner has a solid lineup in store with the likes of Paul Curreri, Shannon Worrell, Andy Waldeck and the Cvillians, Helen Horal, Acoustic Groove Trio, Sarah White, Jim Waive and Jay Pun and Morwenna Lasko.

I am looking forward to hearing Shannon perform again. We met many years ago when she was an intern at The Daily Progress. I bought her first CD shortly after that … and encouraged her to keep playing. But she had other irons in the fire, and went on to help hundreds of youngsters test their filmmaking skills as the founding director of Light House Studio.

I’m happy to hear that she’s exercising her own artistic skills again.

The last time I saw her play live was at a bar called Zipper’s. It, too, is gone. As

is Trax, as is the Mineshaft, as is Downstairs at C&O … to name a just few of our favorite lost late-night haunts.

(I saw Shannon play Trax, too. I believe she opened for Arlo Guthrie.)

But it was that night at Zipper’s that popped into my mind as I read Brenner’s latest C-Fest lineup.

Oh, Zipper’s is now known as Northern Exposure. But back then, I remember stopping in for a beverage after finishing up at a First Night Virginia. There was a band playing, no cover. Not many people were there at the time. You could walk up and sit on the edge of the stage. A girl in a swirly skirt twirled around the dance floor as I tapped my toes to the infectious music.

The band was great. I had followed its progress, too. But when the lead singer saw Shannon in the room, he invited her to come up on stage and join the group in a song. What a treat that was. Shannon Worrell and the Dave Matthews Band.

So, yes, I’m planning on going back to say farewell to another local venue on Saturday.

And who knows? We might just be saying hello to the next big act to come out of Charlottesville’s extraordinary music scene.

Thank you, Lance.

Tickets are a mere $10.

The doors open at 7 p.m., with the music starting at 8.