Gothic Theatre
Marcus Eaton & The Lobby
This summer, Marcus Eaton & The Lobby will gear up for the national release of their new album, The Day The World Awoke, in the only way they know how: playing live in front of any audience that will listen, dance, and have a good time. Since January, the group has logged countless thousands of miles in their van, trekking across the Northwest. Some shows they headline, some they open for acts like Bob Dylan, Counting Crows, John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Victor Wooten, Kathleen Edwards, and Guster. But the reaction generally comes in the form of two questions: “who are you?” and “when can you come back?”
Marcus Eaton & the Lobby subscribe to the “if you work hard enough, something good will happen” ethic. Based in Boise, Idaho, the group has developed a sterling local and regional reputation, based on their fine songwriting and superior musicianship. And of course, their live show. Back home, they’ve played with acts such as Big Head Todd & The Monsters, G Love & Special Sauce, Jewel and Young Dubliners, among others. Says Young Dubs vocalist and guitarist Keith Roberts, “Our fans thank us every time they play with us.”
The Day The World Awoke captures the feel-good fervor of a Marcus Eaton & the Lobby concert while radiating the warmth and spontaneity of a living room jam. Marcus’s melodic vocals and percussive guitar, Zak Frantz’s lyrical woodwind improvisations, and the fluid rhythm section of bassist Jim Monson and drummer Nate Keezer are all here, funneled through the band’s all-things-considered songwriting sensibility.
By arranging the songs as they are on The Day The World Awoke, the band found that the record unfolds like a story. According to Zak, “There are issues of faith, death and God. By the end of the album, the only thing that remains is love. It sounds simple, but it’s an inescapable truth.”
The seeds for Marcus Eaton & the Lobby were sown in Pocatello, Idaho in 1996, when Marcus and drummer Nate Keezer formed a high school duo called E.S.P. Marcus, the son of a songwriter, grew up in Pocatello and began exploring creative outlets (as he says, “there was only one television station, so you didn’t have much choice”).
Despite their local success, E.S.P came to an abrupt end in 1998, when Marcus moved to Boise to attend Boise State University. Eventually, and in roundabout ways, Marcus, Nate, Jim and Zak connected in Boise. Expressing a common interest in classic rock and jazz, the group formed in the jam band tradition, but that was problematic. Initially, the band didn’t put the brakes on the song lengths. Each member would take 3 or 4 solos per song, and it wasn’t unusual to have several 20-minute-plus tunes per set. Says Marcus, “When you haven’t written so many songs, you tend to stretch it a bit. It’s different now.”
As their debut album attests, Marcus Eaton & the Lobby have risen to the songwriting challenge. In an age where angst has become fashion, The Day The World Awoke advances a genuinely subversive notion — that love, happiness and the pursuit of creative excellence are more compelling than despair and contrived attitude.
“Our heroes are people like Paul Simon, James Taylor, Bob Marley and Dave Brubeck — really great musicians who have something to say,” says Marcus. “That’s the goal for us. We want our musicianship, performance and content to be as high-quality as our hero’s, because we really want to create something timeless.”
