SPRINGFIELD – Connectarine isn’t a fruit, but they’re a tasty treat, something you’d like to be gnawing on while cruising down the road on a summer afternoon.
The six-piece band from the Eugene area opened up the 2025 Willamalane Summer Concert Series at Island Park on Wednesday.
“We just try to play songs that we love to sing along to in the car,” Connectarine bass player Kristie Munro said at the show. “It’s sort of genre-breaking. We try to play Gnarls Barkley, even though none of us listen to that type of music; it’s an earworm of a song. Similarly, we might play Levon Helm. It’s just the songs that make us happy, and it turns out that they usually make other people happy, too.
“For me, they’re the songs of my life that I sang in the car at different points in my life. Songs that remind you of good times and memories that you have.”
And that’s the kind of happy mix they entertained the crowd with on Wednesday, whether it was the psychedelic rock sound of Blind Melon with “No Rain,” or with oldies “New Speedway Boogie” and “Viola Lee Blues” by the Grateful Dead. They played Natalie Merchant, Sheryl Crow, and Stevie Nicks – showing the band’s female-dominant personality – and they featured two very riveting original songs, “Oregon Rain” and “Breaking Out.”
With only two more shows on the summertime calendar – Santa Clara Concert at Awbrey Park on Aug. 3 and at Tugman Park for their neighborhood picnic on Sept. 13 – Munro said the band is making plans to gather and write songs for their first album, for which they’re targeting a spring release. So far, they have five originals.
“Now we have the time to sit down and write,” Munro said. “Our guitar player, Dan (Wonsover), writes most of the music, but it’s a team effort. He makes the frame of the house, and we all decorate it.”
The band didn’t start out as a real serious gig – just some girls having fun.
“We started as a ladies’ jam. I played mandolin and fiddle at that time, which I played originally,” Munro said. “We had a core four originally. We had a bass player who had two young children and wasn’t able to commit the way we needed her to, so I took over on bass.”
After that, Desiree Pappenheimer joined the band on stand-up bass and John Raden on drums, joining holdovers Kelsey Irvine (vocals) and Leah Palmer (guitar).
“We’re all really good friends, we camp together,” Munro said. “Unlike most bands, we started just to have fun. We didn’t think we would play for anyone in the beginning; we were just playing to have a good time. It’s a privilege to be asked to play here.
“We’ve come here every year and watched a lot of our friends play. We’re honored to come here and play. Our drummer, John, is in Candy Apple Blue, so he’ll be playing here again on July 31. We’re lucky to have such great musicians in this band.”
And we’re lucky that we get to “connect” with them.
