It was difficult to tell who was having more fun when Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers played at Cleveland Heights’ Cain Park Evans Amphitheater – Bruce or the audience. Frequently smiling during the two-hour show, you could almost see his synapses clicking as he offered fresh, reinterpreted takes of his material.
As much as he enjoyed creating new approaches to his tunes, Hornsby equally lit up during the contributions from the Noisemakers—J.T. Thomas (keyboards), J.V. Collier (bass), Gibb Droll (guitar), John Mailander (violin, mandolin) and Chad Wright (drums). Sitting at his grand piano, he directed the proceedings with hand signals and encouraged the soloing musicians to keep going.
With written requests from fans delivered pre-show, he picked several to play including “Soon Enough,” which he introduced with “Another request. If you don't like it, it could be your neighbor who requested it.” and later “Mirror on the Wall,” one of two songs where he switched to dulcimer. When it came to another dulcimer-led song, Hornsby said, “Let’s go back in time to the fourth hit song in our career, and make it unrecognizable. But, I think you'll like it. A lot of people do.” Before he and his bandmates went into “The Valley Road,” he spoke of being asked to play a whole set on the instrument at the 2011 Bonnaroo on the Sonic Stage.
He had the score in front of him during the performance of “Alabama,” which was co-written with Robert Hunter. His collaborations with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) on 2019’s “Absolute Zero” showed up twice—“Meds” and when someone in the crowd shouted (incorrectly) for “Cast Away.” A confused Hornsby surmised that he meant “Cast-Off,” a track co-written with Vernon. He brought the requester onstage who sat behind him then danced during an instrumental break and fist bumped Bruce before leaving.
With passages influenced by 20th century classical composer John Cage (“White Noise”) and atonal works, Hornsby then rewarded the crowd with an ending section that he described as, “We are going to play a setlist that a lot of you wished for.” The five songs included “The Way It Is,” which featured a give-and-take between Collier, Wright and Hornsby before it blasted back to the full lineup to end the song, a sweeping cinematic “Indigo Park” and the final number, “Mandolin Rain,” which continued his reinvention of his catalog but maintained the core, melancholy feel of it to send the audience gently off into the night.
With the venue’s screens displaying “No phones or video recording” prior to the start of the concert, the majority of the crowd surprisingly honored that, and, like Hornsby, focused on the music’s fusion of pop, rock, jazz, country, bluegrass, Americana and classical.
