DiMecele review: She Has Thunder!

By S. Jaen Black

She HAS thunder!!

That’s Alice Di Micele, and she brought it to the Orcas Center OffCenter Stage Saturday night.  To a sold out house, this dramatic performer started with an acapella number to kindof break in the space. Abbey Lincoln wrote “I’ve Got Thunder (And It Rings),” and  Di Micele set the table with it on this night.

Always standing and dancing, she played her two Weber guitars with her long dark hair flying. Accompanied on bass by her friend, Jimmy Cochran, he was, in his own right, quite an act, visually, and as a bassist, delightfully superb, bouncing around like a cork.

DiMicele’s voice is versatile, and she knows how to use it to present powerful dynamics infused with sexy softness. The tempo was varied, and the style brought forth great soul as she sang songs she had written throughout her forty-something life.

There was a great song about her dog, Blue, who passed a couple of years ago.  “The Cottonwoods” displayed her great talent and picking style and spoke of a good friend’s lost partner, who felt she could hear him when the wind blew through those cottonwoods.

Water is an ongoing theme with this woman, and she told the story of how she sat in her first kayak at Doe Bay, which changed her life.  She didn’t tour for six years and honed herself into a white water guide, a parlor trick she continues to do at times.  While water was mentioned in nearly every song, I particularly thought “Downstream” was hot and had to do with a surfer she met up with on one of those rafting trips…

The audience got dragged into the spotlight as she made us sing chorus’s of various songs throughout both sets.  We didn’t mind as we gave her a standing O and she came back for another number.

Freddy Hinkle did a great job on the board.

Kadoma Columby and Kevin Dicky opened with three very personal and sensual numbers with Kadoma on acoustic guitar and Kevin on acoustic bass.