Holiday Cheer for WFUV is a brilliant annual event – the last 5 years of its 10 year life at The Beacon Theatre – that raises dough for non-commercial New York City rock radio station WFUV, as well as her sister The Alternate Side.  The last few years have featured a “& friends” style whereupon one headlining artist (last year Iron & Wine) anchors the bill and shares the stage with a lot of artists they want to invite.  It makes for unique and unrepeatable collaborations that give Holiday Cheer a, forgive me, especially festive feeling.

This year Conor Oberst was the headliner and he enthusiastically embraced the ‘& Friends’ idea – manifested in his interaction with the other artists.  Some of them he had played with before: The Felice Brothers and Jonathan Wilson.  Some that he hadn’t: Suzanne Vega and Natalie Merchant as well as Laura Marling and The Lone Bellow.  It was The Lone Bellow that supplied the night with its first fireworks.  After playing a couple of tunes with 7 musicians, they reduced to their core trio.  Sharing one microphone, it was murder by 3 part harmony.  Jonathan Wilson, tucked between Vega and Merchant and so unlike either of them, was a bit of an outlier on the bill.  Despite, or partly because of that, his one song set stood out as the single most riveting ten minutes or so of the evening.

Of course, many would disagree including a woman who was weeping, weeping I say, from the Natalie Merchant performance.  Natalie gave Conor Oberst the compliment of the evening when she mentioned that his latest record Upside Down Mountain re-awakened her daughter’s love of music after having it killed by studying at a conservatory for a few years.  Conor was especially jazzed to be playing with Vega as well and invited her onstage with him with a string of kind words.  Dig the pix, taken by Neil Swanson and go the WFUV flickr page for more.  It was a memorable night capped by everyone crowding the stage for a closer that doubled as a forecast: Have You Ever Seen The Rain.

[See image gallery at hollandude.com]