Monday, Aug. 30. Omaha, NE. The Bemis Center for the Arts.

Drove up to Omaha to play one last show before we leave for the tour. The show was at the Bemis with Daniel Higgs, Carnal Torpor, and The Chiara Quartet. We were all assisting with the “purification” of the Calmdome, which was a white, paneled ovoid installation leaned against the wall of the gallery. The floor inside sloped down, and you could lean against the panels, which are soft. The walls vibrate and hum, and microphones throw the drone back at you. Once a pile of people nestled in, we all hummed and sang together.

The musicians played in front of the Calmdome, and the audience members could sneak around to listen to the music from inside. Onto the Calmdome was projected a looped image of an exploding car (as far as I could tell). The Chiara Quartet played several short pieces. The telepathic way they make music together is astonishing and inspiring.

I did a solo set, and then the Chiara Quartet joined me for the last two songs, “Jepthah’s Daughter” and “La Maria.” Jonah Sirota, the violist, did the arrangements, and he did a beautiful job. This was the first time we performed the songs together. The Chiara Quartet and I be playing a few other shows together, when we meet up along the road: Sept. 15 at the Brick in Kansas City, Sept. 17 at the Slowdown in Omaha, and Oct. 11 at Notsuoh’s in Houston. (In Houston the quartet will only be playing with me, the other shows are double bills.) We’ve all been friends for a while in Lincoln, and the Chiara Quartet played at my old place Clawfoot House a couple of times, but the idea for the collaboration actually came together after Jonah saw me performing from atop a hay bale at a benefit for Community Crops that he was attending with his wife and son.

At the end of the night Daniel Higgs played! He had a banjo and a harmonium and some bells tied around one foot. I’d sit before his pulpit any day. The gallery and the Calmdome were a fitting setting for Daniel’s music, the exploding car projection suggesting the apocalypse as he sang about Eden. Other songs talked about the Bible and the slime that makes the world go round.

A spiritual evening all around. We ate together at the beginning of the night, from a tiny, lovely banquet Ashley (Carnal Topor & the force behind the Calmdome) prepared, devastatingly hot salsa and snowflake-like wafers of brown and green for dipping in yogurt. And we removed our shoes to enter the Calmdome together.

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Here’s a review of this show by Jordy Clements with some nice photos: http://omaha.net/reviews/purification-of-the-calmdome