This Side Up opens for Nolatet at Golden Pony

Members of This Side Up pose on the Golden Pony stage.

Ellie Plass, Online Editor-in-Chief
March 15, 2016

Student-led band, This Side Up, has been playing together for two years. It is made up of all seniors, lead singer Ellie Plass, bass player Ava Reynolds, drummer Kieran McClay, pianist Douglas Ritcher, trombonist Valerio Aleman, trumpet player Hollyn Slykhuis and saxophonist Bianca Pierson. On Sunday, March 13, they opened for the New Orleans band Nolatet at the Golden Pony in downtown Harrisonburg. The gig was one of the stops along Nolatet’s national tour to promote their new album, “Dogs”.

“It was a lot of fun to get to play at that venue and to get to open for such incredible musicians. It was definitely a different atmosphere than we had had before since we were playing mostly to adults rather than our peers, so I really enjoyed that,” Slykhuis said. Since the members of This Side Up are all under 21 years of age, it is rare that they play in a bar-like venue such as the Golden Pony.

This Side Up played a short 30-minute set to warm up the crowd for Nolatet. The set included songs like “Hold On” by Sam and Dave and “Somebody Fix Me” by Grace Potter.

“I thought it went really well. I thought it was a really fun set to play. It wasn’t exhausting or anything and we played well,” McClay said. The band felt that they received a good reaction from the crowd.

“The crowd was pretty responsive in a positive way, which was good. I heard a lot of good comments about [This Side Up] and about Nolatet,” Slykhuis said. One of the best parts for both Slykhuis and McClay was the opportunity to hear Nolatet.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before. They were so in sync with each other. It was absolutely incredible. I just spent the whole time just so intrigued by what was going on [that] I couldn’t even process most of it,” Slykhuis said. Nolatet plays a style of jazz music that focuses more on individual solos, grooves and rhythms.

“I thought their music was really far out there. They were making up everything on the spot so it’s hard to understand but once I understood what was happening it was really impressive. Just as a musician personally be in a position to see how other musicians are on the spot just creating music that will never be created ever again [was really great],” McClay said.

McClay had the opportunity to talk to the musicians from Nolatet after their set.

“It was interesting. They were all super happy that young musicians were coming out and watching them, learning from them,” McClay said. “This guy gave me and Douglas [Ritcher] a bunch of CDs for free to listen to and they were like, ‘Oh it’s so cool that you guys are playing music at this age and [playing] all [of] these songs that we know.’ They thought it was cool, they were very encouraging.” Nolatet will continue their tour into the month of April.