Indie music fans may flock to Tacoma’s Immanuel Presbyterian Church tonight for a powerhouse concert featuring The Maldives, Pearly Gate Music and Pickwick. The event is Cathedrals Tacoma: Part One, the first of a series of concerts presented by the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts and Camp 6. Cathedrals is a collaborative project developed by Spaceworks Tacoma artist-in-residence, Aaron Stevens; and Nathan Marion, Director of Fremont Abbey Arts Center in Seattle, who first launched the shows in Seattle. Stevens leads the band Goldfinch; Marion is creator of the experimental musical series The Round, which brings together musicians, visual artists and slam poets onstage. For the initial concert, Stevens and Marion chose Immanuel Presbyterian Church, a Tacoma landmark since 1891.
Here’s what’s in store:
Pearly Gate Music. Zach Tillman writes vivid lyrics and music that conjure the spirit of a punk rock religious revival in an old-time prairie tent, sometimes stripped down to spare acoustic guitar and lovely-croon.
The Maldives are a country meets rock ‘n’ roll band with a shot of blues, soul and folk. They bring a mix of fiddle, pedal steel, banjo, and accordion to stage. Their songs are about dead relatives, broken promises, bad choices and worse hangovers.
Pickwick started in 2008 with Galen Disston and Matt Emmett, who were later joined by Cassady Lillstrom, Kory Kruckenberg, and Garrett and Michael Parker. Originally an alt-country group, the band was raised on the rhythm sections of indie rock staples, but a new direction led the members of the band to dive deep into the catalogs of the Stax and Motown labels and successfully combine the two.
Stevens has been hired fulltime by the Broadway Center to run the new project. For tonight’s event, “We are bringing in our lead sound guy from Broadway Center to take care of the musicians,” he told the Weekly Volcano. “We’ll be running the door, have our ushers from the Broadway Center concessions, the whole deal.”
As a venue, Immanuel Presbyterian promises excellent acoustics, and it is a fantastic choice to launch a series dedicated to “presenting music in amazing spaces.” The church is no newcomer to hosting a diversity of artistic expression; according to its website, “Marimbas, poetry, world music, traditional hymns, the blues, visual arts and film are some of the creative expressions that are aspects of worship” there. It is a California Mission-style church; in 1909, the Tacoma Daily Ledger declared that the church’s “main auditorium is architecturally the most beautiful in Tacoma.” Check out the scene tonight, at 7!
Cathedrals Tacoma: Part One at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 901 N. J St., Tacoma. Tickets, $16. Info: 253.591.5890.
Tacoma Arts 
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