Barnstormer Tour hits Wrenshall

Editor's Note: This post comes to you courtesy of MPR colleague Marc Sanchez - thanks Marc!

Some of you may have driven to Wrenshall, Minn. for the annual, summer Free Range Film Festival. Well, the barn doors are opening early this year. Next Tuesday owners, Annie Dugan and her husband Janaki Fisher-Merrit, are hosting their first concert. The show is part of the Barnstorming tour sponsored by the website Daytrotter, which shares live recordings of bands that stop by their Rock Island, Ill. studio.

Daytrotter mastermind, Sean Moeller dreamed up the tour in the summer of 2009, when he asked, then unknown, Local Natives to play a few shows in Midwestern barns. Moeller says it was pretty apparent, in those first shows, that the audience behavior was strikingly different compared to seeing a show in a bar or club. He thinks having bands play in barns "forces attention a little bit, or maybe people come already willing to give their attention. People are quiet and they're there to listen... the bands appreciate that and feed off it."

The bands love it too. Moeller says that being able to play in a place where everybody is respectful of the music and not having to kowtow to promoters or club owners makes the bands want to never go back to the club circuit.

This is Daytrotter's fourth Barnstormer Tour, but the first that's ventured into Minnesota. On the bill for the evening: Sondre Lerche, Guards, The Romany Rye, Hellogoodbye, and Keegan DeWitt. The barn only holds about 100 people, and as of this posting there are still tickets available.

Here's a clip of Dawes performing in the Barnstormer Tour last year:

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