#LIVE: Jeffrey Foucault at The Ark
#LIVE: Jeffrey Foucault at The Ark
The weather might have been a little chilly, but things were warming up at the Ark. We found our way to our favorite non-profit/all-volunteer venue, The Ark, to catch Jeffrey Foucault kicking off his tour. With a coffee in one hand and a box of popcorn in the other, it was time to find a spot in the intimate venue. The night started with Erik Koskinen playing a few songs alone until everyone showed up for the rest of his set; he also performed his Christmas song “On Christmas Day.”
After that performance, it would only be fifteen minutes before they would all be back on stage, this time under Jeffrey’s band. Jeffrey started playing Winter Court, The Universal Fire, off his latest album The Universal Fire, before introducing himself and joking that he should be talking about the songs before he starts. Fans From there, he springs the new album throughout the set while keeping fan favorites like Rico and Blood Brothers. All this mixed in with funny banters and a great atmosphere, the night was what we needed to kick off the weekend.
MIDWEST – In December, THE UNIVERSAL FIRE full-band tour picks up again in the upper Midwest with shows at The Ark in Ann Arbor, MI. (12/5), the James Theater in Iowa City, IA. (12/6), the Trempealeau Hotel in Trempealeau, WI. (12/8, with a second, special limited-ticket show on 12/9), the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, MN. (12/10), SPACE in Evanston, IL. (12/11), the Stoughton Opera House in Stoughton, WI. (12/12), and finishing out the year at the Cactus Club in Milwaukee, WI. (12/13). Erik Koskinen opens everywhere except Milwaukee – though doubtless we'll make him front a couple of his songs that night – and joins the band on electric guitar. I don't know when this band will convene next, so now is the time.
Jeffrey Foucault released The Universal Fire in September via Fluff and Gravy Records. A series of high-voltage performances captured live in one room, the album is a kind of working wake – Foucault lost his best friend and drummer, Billy Conway, to cancer in 2021 – as well as a meditation on the nature of beauty, artifact, and loss.
LISTEN TO/SHARE "UNIVERSAL FIRE"
Augmenting Foucault's all-star band with members of Calexico and Bon Iver (drummer John Convertino and producer/saxophonist Mike Lewis), The Universal Fire sets Conway’s death against the massive 2008 fire at the Universal Studios lot in California that destroyed the master recordings of some of our bedrock American music, to interrogate ideas about mortality, legacy, meaning, and calling.
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More about Jeffrey Foucault
In two decades on the road Jeffrey Foucault has become one of the most distinctive voices in American music, refining a sound instantly recognizable for its simplicity and emotional power. With a string of critically acclaimed studio albums – “Stark, literate songs that are as wide open as the landscape of his native Midwest” (The New Yorker), “Beat-up troubadour folk whittled to dolorous perfection” (Uncut), “Songwriting Brilliance,” (Irish Times) – he’s built a brick-and-mortar international touring career and a devoted following, one that includes luminaries like Van Dyke Parks, Greil Marcus, and Don Henley.
In September of 2024 Jeffrey Foucault will release THE UNIVERSAL FIRE (Fluff & Gravy, 9/6/24), his first album of entirely new material since 2018. A series of high-voltage performances cut live in one room, the album is both a working wake – Foucault lost his best friend and drummer Billy Conway, to cancer in 2021 – and a meditation on the nature of beauty, artifact, and loss.
Augmenting Foucault’s all-star band with members of Calexico and Bon Iver (drummer John Convertino and producer/saxophonist Mike Lewis) THE UNIVERSAL FIRE sets Conway’s death against the massive 2008 fire at the Universal Studios lot in California that destroyed the master recordings of some of our bedrock American music, to interrogate ideas about mortality, legacy, meaning, and calling.
