By Kaleigh Levoyer
Correspondent
The Rathskeller welcomed back two previous performers on Tuesday, Oct. 25. These two singers, Michelle DaRosa of Straylight Run and Tyler Odom of Northstar/Cassino, returned together under the name Destry to bring their brand of folk-infused music to the College’s students.
Destry took the stage with “Don’t Break My Heart,” a feature song from their second album, “This Island,” which was released earlier this year.
However, a full-band set started off a little rough for the singers as equipment problems, evident from their warm-up about an hour before, began to affect their songs.
For their first couple of songs, it was difficult to hear anything other than the drums, and the microphones had to be adjusted while they were singing. DaRosa’s voice was hard to hear, and it was only when Odom sang with her that they could be understood due to Odom’s lower and more prominent voice.
DaRosa and Odom eventually took the stage by themselves. The duo performed several acoustic songs that displayed the power of their voices, unhampered by the other guitarist and the drums.
After a few duet and solo pieces, the rest of the band rejoined them onstage, with its technical problems fixed, to deliver the powerful “Alabama.”
Playing a few more songs, Destry ended the night with its fast-paced and upbeat “Turn the Lights On,” which DaRosa said was about the time “she had a bat in her apartment.” Laughter from the audience had her clarifying that “she was serious” about the bat.
But after their final piece, the audience did not let things end there. Cries from the crowd for an encore led to a performance of “All I Have to Do Is Dream” by the Everly Brothers to the audience’s cheers.
“I enjoy doing cover songs at concerts,” DaRosa said after the show, “and I’m happy with how the concert went.”
First-time Rat performers Thomas Wesley Stern, a five-person band, opened for Destry and began by playing some of its folk music. The sight of the band itself was an eye-opener, with the presence of a banjo, a cello and an older member playing the harmonica and clarinet.
Between songs, the band joked about how they didn’t have a campus where they lived, that their songs were recorded using a friend’s solar-powered studio and how they had to make burned copies of their music because they ran out of CDs to sell for the night’s performance.
