Jake Bellows with Christopher the Conquered and Both, the Slowdown, Omaha 12/23/15
Christopher the Conquered (left), with jingle bell guests For the second year in a row, Jake Bellows played the Slowdown on December 23. In 2014, it was a rare show with Neva Dinova. This time, it was solo. Both opened again, just like last year. I think they sound pretty good, but they spent a lot more time talking than performing, and experienced some distracting technical difficulties and had to beg members of the audience for AA batteries. Morgan (left) and Jake as Supermoon Christopher the Conquered was up next, for the last night of his 4-show December residency at the Slowdown. He's a pianist from Iowa who demanded a lot of audience participation. He has a very powerful voice, but I can't say I connected with his style of music very much. He was off to a European tour to start the new year. To get in the Christmas spirit, he was operating a sort of challenge, where anyone who wanted to could come on stage and, in exchange for doing some kind of performance wi...