Relive The Head And The Heart's epic concert atop Pike Place Market
6The Beatles had done it. So had U2. Now, ten years after releasing their debut album, The Head and the Heart were playing a rooftop concert in the city where they got their start. Film crews were shooting what would become "Rivers and Roads : The Head and The Heart Live from Pike Place Market", while an estimated 30,000 fans watched below.
“It was thrilling,” said Jonathan Russell of the August, 2019 concert. “It was also little terrifying for height reasons, and just for what we were doing, of course, but it was great.
“We literally used to busk below that roof for maybe 17 bucks, and so to be able to jump on the roof and raise money and give money back to people who need it was pretty incredible.”
Amazon Prime begins streaming the concert January 22. A matching live album comes out April 2.
The Head and the Heart began casually enough, meeting at open mic nights in Ballard's Conor Byrne Pub. It's a story Russell has told many times.
“I walk in,” he says, “and onstage there is this guy who I now know as one of my best friends, Josiah Johnson. He is playing a Bon Iver cover. He's playing 'Skinny Love' and he just blew me away and we started hanging out and we returned to that open mic again and again and just kept meeting.”
Violinist Charity Rose Thielen and keyboardist Kenny Hensely soon join the band. Seattle music veteran Chris Zasche , who was bartending at the Conor Byrne, offered to play bass.
“Within like 30 minutes of Chris being in that room we just locked " says Russell. ."The chemistry was there, and we were like ‘OK this is what our bands sounds like now’”.
Indie folk, strumming guitars and harmony vocals are suddenly the thing. The band's first single, "Lost In My Mind", topped the Adult Alternative Airplay chart in 2011.
In fact, everything happened quickly for The Head and The Heart. In Chicago Zasche was surprised the crowd seemed to know their songs.
“Yeah people were like singing along,” he says. “I guess we had self-released our album at that point. And it just kept happening! You know the words better than I do. What's going on?”
The band was signed to SubPop and they began touring non-stop.
“Early on we said yes to every opportunity that came,” says Zasche. “We would drive overnight with people in the back of the U-Haul, whatever it took to get to make the show. We said yes and we did it.
"I think we were just so engulfed in the music, in the band, that our personal priorities just didn't really exist”.
But the road also took a toll.
“You're living in a van,” Zasche says. “You are tired. You are not sleeping, not eating. Just physically you get run down. Emotionally you get really run down. I think we weren't really aware of our own mental health and each other’s mental health."
Josiah Johnson, who was quite forthcoming in the documentary, entered a recovery program. He has yet to rejoin the band.
One of the few bright side of the pandemic is that it has actually given The Head and The Heart a much needed breather.
Now they're itching to get back onstage.
“For us as a touring band, we are going to really appreciate it a lot more,” says Zasche. “ I think we're gonna be better at it after this”
“I think there is a whole lotta people out there that want some healing and some release from what's going on,” says Russell, “and I'm ready for that as well.”
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