Last month, The Head and the Heart curated Down in the Valley, a brand new two-day music festival in downtown Napa, California. The audio and visual experts of I Know We Should were there, shooting these gorgeous sessions for BGS. It was fitting that we kicked off the series with Down in the Valley’s curators and hosts – they played three sets over the course of the festival – at the gorgeous Hills Family Estate, flanked by canary island palms and backgrounded by olive trees.
The core trio of The Head and the Heart performed two songs for BGS, both from their 2022 album, Every Shade of Blue. They began with the title track, a stripped down arrangement that centers the three-part harmonies of Matt Gervais, Charity Rose Thielen, and Jonathan Russell. The sweeping and lush strings from the studio version are swapped for tender fingerpicking on guitar and Thielen’s emotive bow.
Second, they performed the loping and energetic “Don’t Show Your Weakness,” finding power in singing in unison and in the lyrical hook as a mantra, punctuated by that tight vocal trio sprinkled throughout the verses. Gervais sings of the Adirondacks, but this music feels equally at home right here, in the lushly cultivated mountains of Napa County.
Over the two days of Down in the Valley, we captured a half dozen sessions with artists and bands from the festival’s lineup. Tune in right here on BGS each week as we unveil new Down in the Valley Sessions shot in beautiful Napa, California.
Video Credit: Brad Wagner, I Know We Should
Audio Credit: Juan Soria, I Know We Should
