Common Grounds Coffeehouse was filled with people, the smell of coffee, and music from the Willow Run Band on Friday evening. As the band was balancing their sound minutes before they began their set, people still continued to flood the room, forcing audience members to crowd the doorway and sit on the floor just to hear the music.
The Willow Run Band is closely connected to EMU. The band is comprised of guitarist, vocalist, and the group’s primary writer Jon Bishop ’17; his sister, vocalist Megan Bishop ’18; mandolinist and vocalist Perry Blosser ’18; and drummer, junior Joseph Harder.
The evening began with two country-inspired originals as Jon Bishop’s guitar and vocals led the charge with Megan Bishop’s harmony intertwining with Blosser’s mandolin floating above Harder’s rhythm. As students, each member was heavily involved in choral activities, strengthening their intricate, well-constructed harmonies. While the tonal qualities of the vocals were impeccable, the lyrics were difficult to understand, most likely a consequence of the poor qualities of the room interacting with the constant noise from conversations in the back of the room.
The next two in the set, “Lost and Found” and “Breakdown,” can be found on the band’s 2018 EP “Indigo.” Harder started “Lost and Found” with a slow, mellow rhythm, soon followed by Bishop’s guitar and Blosser’s Andrew Marlin-esque mandolin. “Breakdown” had a similar sound and feeling of intimacy and revealed the personal relationship the band has with their originals, especially Jon Bishop. At times he would close his eyes and wander through the music. During the mandolin solos, Bishop and Blosser would turn and face each other, binding together the guitar and mandolin in jubilant sound.
While the band did play familiar songs from their EP, they also showcased newer ones. On “Fall Away,” Blosser laid down the mandolin for an acoustic guitar to accompany Jon Bishop’s slow, reverberant electric guitar. While both guitars balanced well with Harder’s drums and Megan Bishop’s harmonies rose high over the sound with great brilliance, the lyrics were paricularly hard to understand in ever-growing noise of the room. Two other originals, “The River” and “Southbound Train,” followed, both a testament to Bishop’s country-inspired songwriting prowess and the band’s ability for innovative originality.
The last four songs on the official set list were a rendition of an old-time standard “Bury Me Beneath the Willow,” also titled “Weeping Willow” on the band’s EP, and three originals, “Follow Your Lead,” “Family Tree,” and “Indigo” (also the title of their EP). The originals, specifically “Family Tree,” were among the best reflections of the band’s musicianship as well as Bishop’s songwriting prowess. The lyrics were clear and powerfully written. The harmonies were stunning and, as usual, Blosser’s mandolin was delicate and powerful overtop of Bishop’s elegant fingerstyle guitar. The band’s overall stylistic changes to “Bury Me Beneath the Willow” did not reflect well the depth of the history and tradition of the song whose author remains unknown. The drums were overpowering, making it difficult to capture the sadness of the lyrics.
After their set finished with “Indigo,” the audience shouted for more. The band pulled out a modern version of “Shenandoah,” quieting the audience with the soft guitar and mandolin surrounded by beautiful, flowing vocals. When they were finished, Bishop promptly started a folk/country cover of Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours,” that, if part of the set list, would not have fit and most likely weakened the integrity of the intimacy the band created with their original songs, but overall the audience enjoyed the encore as they sang along with the band, a testament to their ability to read an audience and their love for what they do best: creating music that reaches people and inspires.
