It was hot in so many ways last Sunday when the Cat in the Cream was filled way beyond capacity to see the hardcore bluegrass band Stablehorse. Despite the excess heat, crowds of 20 or 30 people gathered at both entrances just trying to push a little closer.
At Oberlin, stages full of amazing musicians is more of a norm than an exception, but Stablehorse pushed limits almost to absurdity with the amount of talent and fingers flying on fret boards. Their talent was only possibly surpassed by their amiability on stage.
The band featured two local heroes, Zach Hickman OC ’01 and Chris Eldridge OC ’04. The simple mention of Eldridge during the introduction by bluegrass guru Tom Reid elicited cheers from the packed house. Chris Pandolfi on banjo and Andy Hall on dobro filled out the rest of the band’s line-up.
As the band hammered out two 45 minute sets, they traded solos in between sections of rich vocal harmonies. From the get go, the solos were fiery as the band seemed to compete for the loudest audience approval.
Eldridge had an unfair advantage at the beginning due to his established popularity on the Oberlin music scene; simply stepping to microphone would induce loud cheers from the audience. Hickman also had a few diehard fans scattered throughout the room.
After the first few songs it became clear that Pandolfi and Hall were as qualified on their instruments as Hickman and Eldridge – perhaps even more so. Pandolfi especially picked out solo after solo through the night, consistently displaying his prowess on his instrument as well as his own sense of melody.
"We like to come out and take a few heads off before we slow it down," Pandolfi said before the band moved to what they called the "sentimental portion" show with "Blue and Lonesome."
Pandolfi proceeded to show his versatility by singing the lead vocal on "Far Cry" which was followed by the instrumental "Manhattan Handoff," a song penned by Pandolfi.

The band did an excellent job with all the instrumentals as they all possessed great dynamics and managed to hold the audience’s attention throughout. One standout instrumental, “Groundspeed," was (thankfully) only added to their album as an afterthought.
Even the covers they performed stood out as exceptional, including "Blue Jays" by Josh Ritter and an impressively rich sounding "American Girl" by Tom Petty. They closed their set with the latter in what Hickman called his "tribute to the 80s rock anthem mix tape."
In the second set, they covered "Senor" by Robert Zimmerman and even commended the audience for not being fooled by Bob Dylan’s original name.
"Senor" featured Eldridge on the lead vocal as did "Don’t fall in love with me Darlin’. I’m a rambler" in the first set. Both displayed a proficiently suave voice that you might not expect from such an excellent lead guitar player.

He displayed his picking skills later in the second set with "Big Sky Iota." Most fans of Eldridge have probably heard him play it before, but the guitar lead into the song remains one of the most beautifully performed pieces of music heard on this campus.
Hall also took opportunities to display his vocal talents singing the lead on “Simple Life,” a song that was itself simple yet still strikingly captivating. Although Hickman never took the lead on any song he did produce a notable Tom Waits impression during "Blue and Lonesome” in the first set that left people talking about it through the set break.
However, more impressive than any of the individual vocal talents was the bands ability to harmonize. Throughout the show they showed proficiency in the skill and periodically broke sections of truly superb resonance such as the acapella introduction to "There Ain’t Nobody Gonna Miss Me."
If it was just the music, it would have been a great show, but the banter in between songs never failed to get at least a laugh from the audience. Their antics included Hickman unbuttoning his shirt simply by flexing and two rounds of a wet t-shirt contest induced simply by the heat of the room.
Perhaps the most important lesson of the night came from Hickman, who assured everyone that, despite what is said, something can be done with an English major.

The band seemed almost serious when they tired to leave the stage without an encore, and the audience would have been happy to stay much longer that the two song encore that they did play.