MICHAEL STAHL, portraitsbymichaelstahl.com
Performers at the Jan. 24 Light of Day concert at The Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair included, from left, Gordon Brown and Reagan Richards of Williams Honor; Willie Nile; Glen Burtnik, Guy Davis; and Joe D’Urso.
It was a rough weekend. I woke up Saturday to the news of the death of the great “Uncle Floyd” Vivino, and wrote an obituary. I spent most of the rest of the day glued to MS Now, following the dire news out of Minnesota. Then a big chunk of Sunday was devoted to shoveling out from the biggest blizzard New Jersey has seen in quite a while.
Saturday night was frigid, with the looming storm on everyone’s minds. But in spite of everything, it was still a great night, thanks to the Light of Day concert at The Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair. “This is a nice respite,” said one of the performers, Jon Caspi. “A safe space from the craziness.”
MICHAEL STAHL, portraitsbymichaelstahl.com
Willie Nile at Outpost in the Burbs.
Light of Day Winterfest — the fundraising festival whose 2026 edition took place mostly in Asbury Park and Red Bank, Jan. 15-18 — has included an Outpost show annually since 2015. The lineups tend to be similar from year to year: Seven of the 10 acts in this year’s show were also there, last year.
In other words, most of them know each other well — which helped make it seem like a reunion of friends onstage. And many audience members were well acquainted with them, too. Willie Nile, Guy Davis, Glen Burtnik, Williams Honor (the duo of Reagan Richards and Gordon Brown) and Joe D’Urso performed in the main set, sitting together onstage throughout, and occasionally adding impromptu backing vocals and instrumentation to each other’s songs. In the opening set, Caspi (accompanied by pianist Bob Bailey-Lemansky), Sharon “Pipes” Lasher (accompanied by guitarist P.K. Lavengood), Rick Winowski and the duos of Deni Bonet & Chris Flynn and Matt & Eryn O’Ree did the same.
Though there were only a few specific references to what was going on in the world, there were many messages of hope and inspiration through the show, capped with the grande finale, Willie Nile’s protest anthem “One Guitar,” on which nearly everyone, including the opening-set artists, joined in. Nile also played another rouser, “Let’s All Come Together,” while D’Urso sang his uplifting ballad “Hold On,” and Burtnik debuted a wry new, unfinished topical song, possibly titled “Facts Won’t Change My Mind.”
Other new or recent songs — it is significant that the artists felt safe enough in this environment to try out fresh material — included Williams Honor’s playful, half-rapped “Whiskey Truck,” and a genially sentimental song by D’Urso about seeing Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers at Buffalo’s Rich Stadium in 1986. (He dedicated it, naturally, to The Grateful Dead’s late Bob Weir).
MICHAEL STAHL, portraitsbymichaelstahl.com
Guy Davis at Outpost in the Burbs.
If I had to pick one standout performer, though, I would have to go with Davis. The blues singer-songwriter ranged from sly humor to a comforting sense of warmth on a trio of songs — “Long Gone Riley Brown” (a stomping, almost mythical tall tale), “Early in the Morning” (a COVID-inspired meditation on mortality) and “Sugarbelle Blue” — and inspired some of the evening’s most enthusiastic sing-alongs.
Other main-set highlights included Nile’s “Love Is a Train,” with its Dylanesque stream of metaphors; Williams Honor’s intense love song, “First”; and Burtnik’s gentle, winter-themed “Come This Time Next Year.” But really, there wasn’t a dull moment throughout.
While the main-set acts got three songs apiece, as well as the “One Guitar” grand finale, the opening acts had to make do with only two.
The O’Rees performed their touching duet “He Loves Me Anyway” as well as a new song that, like D’Urso’s song about Dylan, Petty and The Dead, looked back at a personally meaningful musical moment (Lynyrd Skynyrd in the ’70s).
Lasher showcased her powerful voice on a pair of autobiographical songs: “Four Floods and a Fire” and the jocular “Late for My Own Funeral.”
Winowski played his haunting “Thinking of You” as well as “Who Do You Love,” and mentioned that he performed the latter on “The Uncle Floyd Show” in 1981 with his band of the time, Desert Fox. (D’Urso also told a story about Uncle Floyd, later.)
MICHAEL STAHL, portraitsbymichaelstahl.com
Chris Flynn and Deni Bonet at Outpost in the Burbs.
Bonet showed her mastery on both violin (on the Flynn-sung “Last Juliet,” a catchy song that originated with his band The Crash Combo) and accordion (accompanying her own vocals on the equally catchy “Don’t Turn Away From Love”). She also added violin to Caspi’s manic novelty song, “Sucker,” for which he came prepared with posters, off which he read things that suckers believe —such as “Cheaters never win” and “I won a Nobel Peace Prize” — as Bailey-Lemansky vamped behind him.
As with all Light of Day shows, this was a benefit; the performers were not paid to be there. Since its formation 26 years ago, Light has raised close to $8 million in the fight against Parkinson’s disease and related disorders, the organization’s co-founder and executive director, Tony Pallagrosi, said during his introduction of the main set.
For more on Light of Day, visit lightofday.org.
Willie Nile will perform at The Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair, May 3. Visit outpostintheburbs.org.
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