Arriving straight from their South by Southwest Tour, which has taken them this spring to Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, California and Nevada, bluegrass-inspired, “new folk” band, Nickel Creek, lit up the Warfield Theater on Saturday with some serious picking and beautiful vocal harmonies, on perhaps their last tour together for a while, as these old friends and musical companions have decided to venture into solo projects and explore new directions. Some of the highlights on this spring tour included a performance at Floore’s Country Store, in Helots, Texas, where Willie Nelson got his start and the Coachella Valley Music Festival in Southern California. As Eric Mayers, my brother and the band’s tour manager says about Floore’s:

“A jewel of a community. A jewel of a venue. We are at Floore’s Country Store. What a turn around from yesterday. We all really like this place. They have (now) a full time kitchen that serves up some of the best tamales, and queso ever. Everyone is pro, and excited to be doing shows here. The gig is a 3,500 capacity back yard, and is famous because John T Floore got Willie Nelson his start. The dressing room was actually Willie’s bedroom for 5 or so years. $100 Fine for Fighting: Back in the 70’s when this place was a through and through honky tonk, there were plenty of fights. There was a $100 fine. Soon enough, if it was going to go down, you would slap a Benjamin on the bar and let it rip!”

Magician and comedian Derek Hughes from Magic Castle in Los Angeles opens up the show tonight with jokes and card tricks, which he constantly reminded do not require magic. He takes the stage to a blasting electronic beat over the speaker and begins,” Get ready San Francisco! It’s time for maaaaaagic! It’s actually not magic. It’s just a trick.”

The first trick begins with his casting a “shadow of mystery” over three ropes of equal length, after which he held two of them together with his hand while proclaiming them to be one rope, he then continues through a series of card tricks involving volunteers from the crowd, imaginary decks of cards, and a grand finale in which he pulls down his pants and produces the missing card between his buttocks, while yelling, “Look! Look! Watch!” The crowd was rolling in their seats. Also impressive was his W.C. Fields trick in which he tosses a ping pong ball into the air and catches it on his nose.

Nickel Creek took the stage and without announcing the first song, jumped right into the funky mandolin intro for “Best of Love” followed by the entrance of violin and then finally the rock bass line and guitar chords. The two-hour-set featured mostly songs from their three albums, Nickel Creek, This Side, and Why Should the Fire Die?, including the Celtic influenced “Scotch and Chocolate,” “Reason Why,” “The Fox,” “House Carpenter,” a new song called “Ferdinand,” and “When You Come Back Down.” “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” is a heart-wrenching rendition of Dylan’s ballad that really brings out Sarah Watkins’ voice. With her brother stepping up next to her and picking the chords delicately on the guitar while reading her emotions, her violin appeared as a phantasmagorical dance, in between the lyrics, accompanied by the mandolin that appears and disappears.

The next song, “Stumptown” is a caffeinated bluegrass jam, written about a café in Portland that serves some of the strongest drip coffee I’ve had, and has singer and mandolinist Chris Thile jumping around the stage again and doing what he does best, some serious picking! I love Thiles’ melodies. While they’re drenched with an old folk twang, and bring in bluegrass and Celtic melodies, they are also chromatic and circular sometimes, creating ebbs and flows, tension and release, like in jazz solos. The set progressed with “Somebody More Like You,” and “Jealous of the Moon,” a country waltz written by Thile and Gary Louris of the Jayhawks. They continue with “Smoothie Song,” “This Side,” “First and Last Waltz,” and “Ode to a Flower.” Finishing up the last set – truly the last set that I will hear from these guys – they break into “When in Rome,” one of the central jam tunes on their last album, Why Should the Fire Die?, on which bassist Mark Schatz steps away from his upright bass and breaks into an unsuspected clog dance improvisation. As the show ends, I am savoring the last remnants of the set, the last stomping dance-beat, the vocals still drifting through my head, the subtle arrangements, the rich acoustic tone, all together a momentous performance, the set representing the early and the new, and their cohesion, something that only grows after eighteen years together.

Thile and the Watkins started to perform together in Southern California in 1989, when Thile was eight, and spent a decade composing and playing live shows. From their 2000 release on Sugar Hill Records of Nickel Creek, to their 2002 release of This Side, to their 2005 release of Why Should the Fire Die?, to their 2007 release of Reasons Why: The Very Best, the band has grown a huge fan bass and winning multiple awards including multiple Grammy nominations. The truly innovative mandolin player and lead singer, Chris Thile, the only American musician on the BBC ballot, was awarded the Musician-of-the-Year as part of their folk awards. Known for their musical compositions, tight arrangements, harmonious vocals, and improvisation, are not genre-jumpers, and aspire to create a voice for themselves, that interweaves their influences, and brings out their personalities. Their latest album, Why Should the Fire Die?, which is their third album on Sugar Hill Records, was recorded in Los Angeles by producers Eric Valentine and Tony Berg, experts at working with the classic analog sound and vintage reverb.

Chris Thile started playing the mandolin when he was five and was soon performing at bluegrass festivals, winning the Walnut Valley Festival mandolin championship at twelve in Kansas in 1994. Since he put out his first album, Leading Off, the same year as the Walnut Valley Festival, Thile has released four albums under his own name, three albums with Nickel Creek, and has collaborated Stuart Duncan, Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Jerry Douglas, Bryan Sutton and Dolly Parton. In 2003, he joined forces with mandolinist Mike Marshall and released the duet album, Into the Cauldron, which featured originals as well as mandolin arrangements of pieces by Charlie Parker and J. S. Bach. His experimental 2004 album, Deceiver, shows Thile’s “new-grass” influence, mixing traditional bluegrass with electric guitar, piano, drums, violin, viola, cello, and bass. His latest album, How to Grow a Woman from the Ground, was released last year. Thile was just awarded the BBC Musician-of-the-Year as part of their folk awards; In 2006, Thile was nominated for the Grammy, best instrumental country performances, for his song “Eleventh Reel”; In 2001, Thile was awarded the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) award for Mandolinist of the Year. He played on Béla Fleck's Perpetual Motion - featuring arrangements of Baroque music with Fleck and Edgar Meyer - and Dolly Parton's Little Sparrow. If this doesn’t scream out, check this mandolinist out, then perhaps this solo will.

Brother and sister, guitarist and violinist Sean and Sarah Watkins, along with bassist Mark Schatz, give Nickel Creek their foundational sound, their solid, unhurried tempo, their rich tone that seems to blend together, the familial intimacy that prevails in their singing, picking, strumming and bowing. While Thile’s is the much loved family friend, constantly joking with the band between and during songs, seeming to prod at and tickle them, the rhythm section remains anchored while the seas are stirred. Sean and Sarah grew up in Carlsbad, California, and both picked up the guitar and violin, respectively, at early ages. At 16, Sean Watkins won the National Flat-picking Championship, and since then has been developing his unique style of "seanwatkinsgrass," as he calls it, as can be heard on his albums, Let it Fall (2001), 26 Miles (2003), and Blinders On (2006). Sarah Watkins, who was recently written up in Strings Magazine as “The Fiddler on the Verge,” Sarah’s violin playing and vocals will surely lead to some more stellar music in her future. In the near future, Sean and Sarah will be touring this June under the name Watkins Family, during the Various and Sundry road show that will also feature Glen Philips, Grant-Lee Philips, and Luke Bulla. Having worked with David Grier, Béla Fleck, Jerry Douglas, and Mike Compton, bassist Mark Schatz is a veteran bluegrass player as can be heard on his albums, Brand New Old Tyme Way, and Steppin’ in the Broiler House.

My bother, Eric Mayers, with The Lowell MacGregor Group, has been working as a tour manager for Nickel Creek for a few years now, and has developed a rich friendship with them on the road. In fact, Nickel Creek performed at Eric’s wedding last September, the great day on which Eric and Laura Lamey came together, and, having heard so many great stories about soul food, all-night bus trips, and running jokes, hearing them play for the last time has tuned me in to a certain grateful nostalgia that this particular combination of musicians and friends feel during their last tour (in a while). Eric affirms that the Warfield has been one of his as well as the band’s favorite venues on the tour:

“One of the best places to play ever. We had Jerry’s room as our dressing room. The band had a good set, but afterwards, my friend Matt Lawsky took me on a tour of the bowels othe Warfield which was a real blast. Steve and my father were in the house as well. So, about the Warfield, we have all been there when we were surprised to see the room breathing, or excited to see it… The Warfield has a ventilation system where in the deeps of the building is this 1000 sq foot room. Enclosed in it is a steel octopus looking machine the size of a bus, with arms and tentacles going every which way in and out of the room. Along the ceiling are all these 6″ holes shooting up into the theatre. Turns out that this is a temperature and humidity control system from the 40’s. The octopus is a real ventilation system that pulls air into the large room, the air goes through the holes. The room is the lung of the Warfield, and there are little vents into he floor and the seats. The Warfield does in fact breathe, help or no help!”

As Sarah Watkins put it at tonight’s concert, “When people ask me how long we are going to stay apart, I say, I don’t know, three Radiohead albums maybe, or four, or five?” While awaiting Nickel Creek’s reunion, I eagerly await hearing Chris Thile’s new band, How to Grow a Band, and whatever the Watkins Family and Mark Schatz have in store for us!