When you are a music fan and living in New York City, you are truly a lucky person for a couple of reasons. The first is because there always seems to be something interesting to do and the second is how you can very well walk into something special by sheer happenstance and find yourself entertained to the fullest. Such was the case that I found happening when I headed down to Sullivan Hall a few weeks ago to see my friends Rock band do their covers and some originals. I had started my night down at Duke’s Bar over on 19th Street and Park Avenue South and it had been a nice quiet couple of weeks from the often insanely busy Heavy Metal concert scene. My choice of the Duke’s Happy Hour was a no-brainer for me as I always find it to be a comfort zone and so I enjoyed myself and reflected upon some of the January shows we had adventured into and documented for the readers of the site. Since Sullivan Hall is a decent distance away from where I was perched, I figured to walk off the indulgent fun by making my way down to the West village by foot. I wandered down the avenues past the shops on Broadway and through Union Square Park. It was still a nice night as far as temperature was concerned and not too cold or windy.

The venue itself is on Sullivan Street right off of the park, but I had to stop and pause to get a shot of the magnificent Arch which is aptly named “The Washington Square Park Arch”. Amazing how it is not named something a little more grandiose. So where was I….oh yes, the club and the gig. When I arrived at the show my friends band RagTag were beginning their set and it was a good time but as they closed out their portion of the night the venue space really began to fill up. The large crowd was gathering for singer songwriter Ron Pope, a musician who had just been signed to Universal Republic records. Since I had my trusty camera in hand I decided to snap a number of shots of his performance for our blog because we had periodically attended shows outside of the normal scope to help re-energize our Metal batteries and keep us as an open minded music journalist. You can see all of the shots we took of Ron Pope by clicking the image below, and we have a number of them for you to enjoy.

One of Ron’s staple tracks was “A Drop In The Ocean” which you can hear on his MySpace page and I must say that I liked his style when I heard this track. I can safely compare him to being along the lines of singers that would work well within a Counting Crows sort of vibe and it was a nice change of pace for me. Tonight Ron was celebrating the new association with Universal Republic and he had the crowd eating out of his hand and also was doing this set with about a dozen other musicians on the stage. He had a couple of guitar players, a three singer backing vocal and two keyboard players and the drummer. Whew. I don’t think I will ever complain about lacking room on a stage should I ever jam again with the conventional four person lineups I am usually involved in.

Ron’s signature song can be legally downloaded via the link below for a mere $.99 and if you are also an open minded fan of music, I think you will agree that it is a sound choice to make and help a promising artist show his new label that they made a good decision with him. My personal opinion is that Universal Republic has a solid winner on their hands with Ron and his material and we wish them all luck. I would go to see him again if the time allowed me the chance. Click his official page to hear more of his stuff and thanks for not minding the deviation from the usual musical presentation. I’ll take a moment to share this secret with you. For the past few months I have been planning a side website which will be the perfect home for other musical events I might happen upon along with a whole mess of things that fall outside of the PiercingMetal site and PiercingMetal Musings Blog. Whenever that goes live you can count on my sharing the news here.

Official Website: http://www.ronpopemusic.com