What’s Going On: Dec. 27-31

By L. KENT WOLGAMOTT – Lincoln Journal Star, Neb. (TNS)

Ugly Sweater Party with Alli And I, Brad Hoffman, Orion Walsh, Rich Confer, 7 p.m. Friday, Bourbon Theatre. Home after a two-month European tour that took him to the UK, France, Belgium and Germany, and some Christmas-related dates in California, Orion Walsh will, at last, play an album release show for “Walking Through The Forest,” the album he released digitally in October.

The homecoming show couldn’t fit better with “Home to You” the second of eight songs on what is Walsh’s most personal album as he sings, along with guest Emma Harner, of traveling the country and the world, finding himself lonely only to return home “to you.”

Loneliness and break-ups pervade the recording, from the rollicking opener “In Desperate Times,” through the back-to-back haunting “Last Halloween” and the “stay with me a little while” pleading ballad of “Just Friends.”

Produced and engineered by Lucas Kellison, “Walking Through the Forest” is Walsh’s best crafted album with sensitively played full-band arrangements that are perfect for the tone of each song — for example bringing some bass against lush backing vocals in the development allegory “Concrete Maze.”

Walsh’s ninth album is one of the best of his career, ending appropriately enough for Lincoln’s hardcore troubadour, with a beautiful acoustic-rooted “Melt with the Snow,” a dying man’s look back at his life.

Walsh will be joined by The Killigans singer Brad Hoffman, Rich Confer and Alli & I on Friday’s bill. CDs of will be available for purchase at the show.

Bel Airs, 5 p.m. Tuesday, Zoo Bar. It’s an early New Year’s Eve show with the Bel Airs Tuesday. You can just imagine its midnight when the Zoo Bar’s favorite R&B trio gets about halfway through its second set.

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