Acoustic Eidolon, plus Carols

Last night was the ISU symphony's Christmas concert. It was quite enjoyable, especially since the first half featured Acoustic Eidolon. This is a husband/wife duo. The wife plays the cello (apparently one made by someone here in Pocatello) and the husband plays guitar and "guit-jo". The guit-jo is an instrument he designed that looks like a guitar with two necks. One neck is almost a standard guitar, with one extra bass string. The other neck is strung with a different kind of string that gives it a much higher, harp-like sound. He can play both necks at once.

I thoroughly enjoyed their performance, but Marky and my mom both thought that they were toning themselves down for the orchestra, and liked the two encore pieces (with no orchestra) better. I liked it all.

The second half featured two symphony pieces sandwiching a carol-singalong. I get rather tired of the carols when all seven five (seemed like seven) verses are included, but apparently the current director really likes the end verses of "The First Noel." I don't. I think the early verses bother me less because I can see them in a meta-mythological context that I am capable of finding inspiring, rather than nauseating. Still, the singing was fun. My preference would be for fewer verses and more carols, however.

I would have linked to a video of Acoustic Eidolon, but I'm not finding one, so here's their newest album: River of Fire. There should be an option to listen to samples there.