By Chris Kornelis
A&E Editor
Neatly sorted somewhere between country and bluegrass sits the music of Nickel Creek.
Nickel Creek, comprised of violin, guitar and mandolin, play ASUI Kibbie Dome Sunday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15, $10 and $5 and can be purchased in the Idaho Commons or the North Campus Center.
Sean Watkins on guitar and his sister Sara on violin, along with mandolinist Chris Thile form the trio that makes up Nickel Creek. Although two of the three members are not old enough to buy a drink in a bar, they have been making music together for more than a decade.
Easily labeled a bluegrass band, Nickel Creek insists its sound extends beyond the limitations of bluegrass.
“We are a conglomeration of everything we listen to,” the band members said in a press release. The group’s current listening includes Elliot Smith, Radiohead and Bach and Pat Metheny.
Further explaining the group’s melting pot of sound, Thile said, “It’s like having paintbrushes in all different sizes and shapes. Each brush paints color in a different way. What we’re trying to do is drag a really interesting brush and then blend all the various colors—of all genres of music we love.”
The three met at a pizza establishment that was housing a band named Bluegrass Etc. Chris and Sean had been studying with mandolinist John Morre of Bluegrass Etc., and Dennis Caplinger was showing Sara around on the fiddle. With all three kids in home school and still in the primary grades, they formed a band along with Chris’s father Scott Thile on bass.
After a bluegrass promoter caught wind of Nickel Creek and liked the idea of a children’s bluegrass band, the band began touring the bluegrass festival circuit. After the band’s self-titled debut album was released in 2000, Scott Thile parted ways with the band. Ten years of playing with the same people every night has not soured the band’s desire to improve as a band and enjoy what they are doing.
“We love to grow. There are moments on stage where I look over and think, This is why I’ve been in this band since I was eight,’ “ Thile said. “It’s so comfortable, and yet we’re all focused on bettering ourselves on a solo level. Sean and I are writing and pushing each other to come up with better stuff.”
“Our first ten years together, people would happen to see us because we were part of a large bluegrass festival,” Sara Watkins said. “Now our music is not strictly bluegrass, and we’re seeing a lot more people from the college scene. It means more to us to grow slowly because it’s not a lot of hype.”
Along with their duties in Nickel Creek, key songwriter Thile and Sean Watkins have completed their own solo projects. Watkins’ solo debut, “Let It Fall,” was released in the spring, and Thile is expected to release his third solo album in the fall.
The band is now touring in support of its latest album, “This Side,” which debuted at No. 18 on the Billboard top 200 charts and currently rests at number 34.
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WSUıs improv comedy group opens
Nuthouse, WSUıs theater improvisational comedy group opens at the R.R. Jones Theater today and Saturday.
³People love improv because it is based around audience suggestions,² said Pat Moss, Nuthouse director. ³Itıs comedy, and itıs for them.²
Nuthouse tickets are $2, and for this, the first performance, itıs buy two, get one free. Tickets may be purchased at the box office beginning at 7 p.m. on show nights.
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