Dustin Milotte: Get Your Midweek Fix With Bellfield
Who: Bellfield w/ Brandy Robinson and Summit Hill
Where: Blue Cat's
When: Wednesday Nov. 29, Doors at 8:00 p.m.
As I stepped out of my car I had a moment of hesitation. “What was that address again?” I reached into my pocket for a recycled handbill, but the question was answered for me. The sound of a full band exploded out of one the houses on a residential north Knoxville road. I proceeded up the steps with intentions of listening by the door when it suddenly swung open. I passed through and started setting up my laptop. There was a slight acknowledgement of my presence, but nothing could shake the vibe coming out of this living room turned practice space. The song continued on taking some intricate turns with precise guitar lines and melodic vocal interjections. All five of the musicians seemed blissfully high on their collective sound. The song ended, the guys grinned. They all came over to introduce themselves and so concluded my introduction with one of our cities most up and coming bands, Bellfield.
I had seen them once before earlier this year at our downtown cancer benefit for Latih Keilany. There was a lot of great music that night from various bands but Bellfield left an impression. They had the one thing necessary to grab new listeners: Energy. Their music, which they describe as “acoustic rock with electric guitars”, is a well balanced mix of dramatic dynamic shifting instrumental sections and thoughtful lyrics. Rob Morrow (guitar/vocals) and Van Gallik (guitar/vocals) take principle song writing duties while Alex Bayless (bass/vocals), Chad Fifer (drums), and Jed Eaton (percussion) provide for a rock solid rhythm section.
Bellfield achieves their broad sound by open-mindedly taking to heart their varied individual musical influences. The result is a cocktail mixing the likes of O.A.R., Rusted Root, Sublime, and Will Hoge to name a few. But while influences play their part Bellfield’s goal is to be original and take their music on the road. That is the key to the groups mission statement: Quit work and make music.
As I sat and talked with them a few things became apparent. First of all, they work hard. They draw a big crowd because they work to get their name out there and promote their shows, and those crowds keep coming back because of the time and energy spent on the music. But the other main thing I noticed was how light they manage to keep their dispositions. They crack jokes at each other and generally come off as an easy going group of guys who love to play music together.
