Kevin Copeland, Paul Spring, Kendra McKinley
Harmonie Hall
4372 Fleming St.
Philadelphia
August 20, 2026
Is Harmonie Hall Philly’s most slept-on DIY spot? Surely it’s one of the coziest – pews and couches, colorful and bright, with big windows letting the natural light in and a great-sounding room. When I arrived (three songs late) I scooted next to a friend in an otherwise-empty pew up front, and between songs she whispered, “Have you been here before? This place is amazing.” Hard agree, folks. But for whatever reason I don’t go to, or even hear about, a ton of must-see shows there. Maybe that’ll change. Consider this me trying to get the word out more explicitly: this room should be in greater demand. (This was my third show there, the last being Jeffrey Lewis back in July, covered by me for Midbrow, plus the synchronously-initialed Haley Heynderickx when she performed with her band at Harmonie Hall shortly after it reopened in June 2024.)
The opening set by my friend, the New York-based Kevin Copeland (additional full disclosure: he’s a collaborator as well, and an excellent multi-instrumentalist, engineer and producer all around), was a delight: this was my first time seeing Copeland perform since we met at a basement show we both played in 2023, and while his records are the clear work of a fine craftsman – marvels of warm, kind-hearted, romantic, and sometimes explosive and experimental folk rock – in this intimate solo setting, Copeland’s songs wanted for nothing besides his searching, intimate, conspiratorial voice and firm, loping, melodic rhythm guitar work. (He’s got a mean right hand.) He was joined at the end of his set by Paul Spring on mandolin and harmonies, and the two stopped my friend and I in our tracks with hypnotic, prickly and glistening guitar-and-mandolin arrangements of the fiddle tunes “Stone in the Field” and “Hardiman the Fiddler.” It illuminated a Celtic strain in Copeland’s melodicism I’d only registered obliquely at best before, a clue at how he conjures the ancient, time-worn and green-lush in his songs.
The Minnesota-based Paul Spring took the stage solo next, on acoustic guitar now, and his set was a stunner: totally arresting, totally incredible. Whispers of what-the-fuck flowed freely; despite a little bit of pre-set descriptive warning from Copeland, I wasn’t prepared. Spring’s songs are amalgamations of virtuosic contrapuntal guitar playing, wide left-hand-stretching voicings with independent melodies juggled deftly, clearly Bach-informed in the construction and compositions and arrangements, but lyrically answering the question: what if Bach wrote funny, irreverent, insouciant, poetic lines that flowed as effortlessly as his melodies? Can you casually drop jokes about Eminem and John Denver into such hauntingly beautiful music (“Barnstorm,” the title track from his new record) and get away with it? Spring can. These songs demanded our full attention and were transportive; you could feel the whole room on board, connected and madly impressed, with the added bonus that Spring is a magnanimous presence onstage. It was a joy – not to mention an inspiration, if only in the sense of inspiring me to practice more – to hear his damn-near-flawless acoustic bouncing around this great room.
