A year-and-a-half ago I was hired to film Melissa Ferrick at the Aggie Theater in Ft. Collins. I had never heard of her before that and didn’t know what to expect. It was a Sunday night and the crowd was sparse, but she knocked my socks off with her high-powered performance. Melissa was a pleasure to work with, plus her music, songwriting, and band were awesome. I came away from that job a big fan of hers. A couple of months later I approached Greg at Planet Bluegrass trying to drum up work as a Lyons-based videographer/ support local business, etc., and gave him a DVD of Melissa’s concert as a sample of my work. Nothing ever came of that, unfortunately, and I never heard back from him, but was pleasantly surprised a few months later to see that Melissa had been booked for FolksFest ‘08 on the same day as KT Tunstall. Needless to say, I bought my ticket right away!
As luck would have it, I later accepted a paying gig in Telluride the same weekend as FolksFest, and since I couldn’t be in two places at once, reluctantly sold my Sunday ticket. 
I was bitterly disappointed to miss the show despite the torrential rain they had that day. Since then, I’ve searched the forums and blogs to see what people thought about Melissa’s performance. I’ve read rave reviews about KT Tunstall, The Waifs, Todd Snider, Nanci Griffith, Great Lake Swimmers, etc., but not one word from anybody about Melissa Ferrick – it’s almost as if she didn’t perform at all! I’m a bit stunned since I expected to hear the same gushing enthusiasm I felt myself the first time I saw her live. Can anybody tell me how her performance went and how well she was received by the discriminating music fans in the crowd that day? Please advise - Jim
Hi Jim,
I’ll answer. I’ve seen Melissa a few times in really small venues in Baltimore and Flagstaff. She does have an amazing energy and because I know her show will always be amazing, she was one of the acts that I went specifically to see. Even in an outdoor venue in the early afternoon that energy came through. I know I really enjoyed her show a lot–even with the pruny skin and mold that was developing on me by that point. She’d been at the song school and it looked like a lot of people from the school came out to support her. She stated several times that she was really excited to play for people who actually listened instead of talking or shouting out the lyrics with her. I thought she went over well. :thumbsup