Michael Lee Firkins at Highland Community College 10-16-2012

A few years ago, a friend gave me the CD “Chapter Eleven” by Michael Lee Firkins. By the first track (Big Red), I was impressed. After the fourth track (Trinity Road), I was stunned. This guy was GOOD….and I’d never heard of him despite the fact that he’s from relatively nearby in Omaha. I soon had all his albums, but still can’t decide on a favorite; they are all great. One thing I will say though, is that Michael Lee Firkins is one of the harder guitarists I’ve heard to try to plug into any one genre. You’ll hear everything from rockabilly to jazz to shredder to blues, very good blues. Visit his site (MichaelLeeFirkins.com)to hear a sampling, but be ready to go to Amazon to buy the albums; a little taste of his music won’t be enough.

Thinking it should be fairly easy to catch one of his shows, I started checking his tour schedule only to find he always seemed to be playing places like California or Poland! I’d resigned myself to the fact that I’d have to settle for listening to his albums until I saw a tour update a couple months ago that showed him playing Sioux Falls…then Sioux City….and then in Highland, Kansas! Highland? Isn’t that just a small village in the northeast corner of the state?

I hadn’t been to Highland since the early 70s when the highway still passed through there and was only vaguely aware that they had a community college. HCC is a remarkably modern little campus sitting like an oasis amidst the pastures and fields of typical Kansas farm country. In the middle of this campus is Culbertson Auditorium, an excellent venue for music. Not really small enough to be called cozy, it IS small enough for everyone to have a great seat. I highly recommend catching part of their Fusion Performing Arts Series.

I had the chance to talk to Michael a while before the show and was happy to find that he’s a great guy without any trace of a big head. I’d asked him if it would bother him to have a lens pointed at him for extended periods since I’ve noticed that even some veteran performers tend to get self conscious after a while. We got to talking about “photographing” the show (he doesn’t like the term “shooting” since what happened to Darrell “Dimebag” Abbott back in 2004) and he mentioned he was looking for a cover shot for his upcoming album. He said he’d like to get some good stuff of him playing one of two Telecasters with resonators, both really nice looking instruments. I was planning on shoo…..err taking a lot of photos anyway, but now I was really primed!

Unfortunately, the crowd was pretty small when the show started. Whether it was the fact that it was a Tuesday evening or that he was playing where there is a mix of college students who prefer hiphop and locals who like their country and western or a combination of the two, the crowd was much smaller than I expected for an artist of this caliber. Serious music fans in the area need to make an effort to catch this great series. It is an unexpected gem of an event put on by a group of great folks.

From a purely selfish point of view, the small crowd really worked to my advantage. Only around center stage did I have to worry about getting in someone’s way as I maneuvered to get my photos. He is such an animated performer that it was easy to get carried away and I often found myself taking sequences of a dozen or more and I ended up with over 1,400 pics! The tough part, as is often the case, was trying to pick which ones to include here.

It was a great show (the sound check alone was worth the drive over!) with Michael doing something different each song (different guitars, fingerpicks, slides, etc) to give a greatly varied show. Excellent job!

Now, I’ll let you play some of his music and look at some photos. Here are a few links to his videos……..

Off his first album..............Rain in the Tunnel and 24 Grand Avenue

Still one of my favorites, off Chapter Eleven............... Trinity Road

Can't forget the blues.......... Voodoo Chile   Which he just happened to close with.

This was during his sound check.

Notice all the Dora stickers on this guitar.

That's Andrew Malashock on bass.

Chris Siebken played drums.

Michael opened the show with this "Dobrocaster".

It's hard to pick a favorite shot, but this is one of them.

I had to back up to get them all in a shot.

Another candidate for "shot of the night".

Here's his other Tele with resonator.

Intros

This is a nice looking Burny.

He got Dora back out and used a thumb pick for the song Big Red.

He closed with this guitar on Voodoo Child.

This MAY be my favorite shot of the night.

   I'd like to say to thanks to Michele Scott, Shayna Leahy, Cheryl Rasmussen, Graham Cooper and everyone else from HCC who were so nice and who worked so hard to make this happen. Thanks also to Michael and the guys for putting on such a great show.