Nickel Creek plays long-awaited concert at OU
San Diego-based band Nickel Creek will bring its bluegrass and country tunes to Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium tonight.
“There will be a lot of songs from the new record and some covers. I’m not gonna ruin the surprise, though,” guitarist Sean Watkins said.
Watkins and his violinist sister Sara joined with mandolinist Chris Thile in 1989. They have released three albums. Their latest, Why Should the Fire Die?, released in August 2005. Watkins said their first album was “more bluegrass-oriented,” but the band members have matured in different ways musically.
Watkins doesn’t like naming names when asked about his musical inspirations, saying it “wouldn’t be helpful” in showing the band’s range.
“There were a lot of songwriters that we came in contact with, and that mixed with our love of Celtic and traditional music, classical arrangements and modern rock,” Watkins said.
“The band is what it is and we all enjoy…individually messing around with other sorts of instruments,” Watkins said.
Andrew Holzaepfel, associate director for the Office of University Events, said audiences have been requesting to see Nickel Creek in Athens.
“We’ve been wanting to get them for the last four years, and we did a survey of students, and Nickel Creek was who they wanted to see,” Holzaepfel said. He also mentioned that he does not consider Nickel Creek a country act, so scheduling them a week after country star Miranda Lambert was purely coincidental.
This show will also be special because at the end of the next year the band will be going on an “indefinite hiatus,” Watkins said.
“We will have been a band for 19 years then, and we just need a break. We’re not putting a timeframe on it,” Watkins said.
The members already have ongoing solo projects. Thile has released four solo albums so far, and Watkins has released two. Watkins said the hiatus was inconsequential with the solo efforts.
“We all have solo records, but that definitely makes the band better; there’s no competitions (between the members),” Watkins said. Nickel Creek performs at MemAud at 7:30 tonight. Tickets are still on sale at the box office.
