Those entering the third-floor auditorium of the Riverside Theatre who weren’t well informed on that Friday of Mission Creek, may not have been particularly shocked by what their gaze was met with. Before the steadily growing audience, there was neither a idly-bantering band sound checking, nor a mind-boggling assortment of electronic doodads on racks with spilling wires. Instead, there stood a silver-haired man holding an enormous double bass behind a single microphone, his shoes tucked neatly beside him. Attending a festival that was hosting star acts like Mannequin Pussy, Raekwon, and Kim Gordon, some concertgoers that weekend might have written off Nat Baldwin entirely–but those in the room knew better.
It was an elusive sort of quality, the type of feeling where if you didn’t know what you were looking for you might miss it. But there was a warmth growing amid the softly buzzing room. You could see it in the expectant, reverent smiles of the people in the crowd as they traded anticipatory glances between one another and the stage. Donning a vivid orange Feed Me Weird Things shirt, a beautiful gesture honoring our local legend and longtime organizer of Mission Creek, Chris Wiersema, Nat Baldwin captured our attention from the moment he walked on stage.
The show began without any address to the crowd, nor waiting for the voices in the lobby to die. Nat simply inhaled, setting his bow upon the wired strings, and pulled out a thick note to reverberate across the room. The crowd grew quiet. Even the chamber outside stood silent as Baldwin linked that first cloying note into the next, carefully working the bow across the face of his instrument. Heavy fingers danced over the neck with instinctive grace and calculated intent, weaving into a low melody. Throaty vocals accompanied the deep bass in a voice which moved as gracefully as the hand pulling his bow, as though he were writing a sentence over the strings. With his words, Baldwin spoke of family, love, age, and time. He spoke of messing up, of starting over, and of trying again. Baldwin sang, played, and spoke out that theater what it felt to be human. The set was short, interrupted only twice by modest introductions and credits, and a brief “I love you too!” in response to a shout from an audience member. And yet, the music seemed to last longer than it could have possibly been, as time turned to hour-miles bent around the heart. The sweetest moment being Nat’s cover of beloved Iowa musician Arthur Russell’s “A Little Lost”, fluttering and earnestly singing “Cause I’m so busy, so busy/Thinking about kissing you,” perfectly befitting of the atmosphere that evening.
As Baldwin closed out his set, he thanked everyone for coming and spoke with audience members afterward, exchanging handshakes, kind words, and various forms of sweet affection. Within the culture of modern music festivals, even at smaller ones like Mission Creek, it can feel almost routine to show up and just choose what’s easiest, what’s simplest, and forget how to care. When I left the Riverside theater that night, I left knowing that Nat Baldwin cared, and so did I.
