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The first few notes float out over the hometown crowd of 5,000, gathered for a special show. After ten years together, this is the final concert for New Jersey band From Good
Homes, and the appreciation is flowing both ways.
Cheers fill the air as the quintet slide into their opening song, “Charlie Loves Our Band,” an affectionate ode to their fans. The lyrics are like a thank-you note to every band’s biggest fan and the crowd returns the sentiment by applauding every line.
It’s been more three years since that show, in August 1999, but fans can now relive FGH’s last waltz in all its remastered glory with the live CD Take Enough Home, released last month on indie label BOS Music. The 75-minute single disc contains eight songs from the three-hour concert, plus a bonus studio track, the previously unreleased love song “Into the Light.”
 From Good Homes’ sound incorporates rock, jazz, folk, and bluegrass feeling, expressed by a variety of voices - on Take Enough Home the five-man band skillfully layers acoustic guitar, bass, drums, saxophones, mandolin, fiddle, and melodica (and is joined by friends Damian Calcagne on Hammond organ and clavinet, Edno on percussion, and Brain Rosenworcel of Guster on bongos). All these elements combine in upbeat, danceable music known affectionately as “hick-pop.”
The songs on Take Enough Home are all crowd favorites, and the self-dubbed “Homies” eat them up like kids racing to gobble their ice cream before it melts. They clap out a thundering beat under Jamie Coan’s mandolin solo on “There She Goes.” When they hear the first notes of the rocked-out “Head,” they begin to chant the chorus together, sounding like a stadium of European soccer fans.
The band’s performances show they are just as pumped up as their fans. Each song is packed with energy, from the drum jam after “Head” to Dan Myers’ wild sax solo in “Where Songs Begin” to Todd Sheaffer (who now fronts Railroad Earth) and Brady Rymer belting out their rich harmonies.
For fans of From Good Homes, the show is over, but this great-sounding live disc can still give them a little more to take home.
Susie Ochs
JamBase | Chicago
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