Dispatches from the Music Scene: Willem Dafoe Fan Club and Mara Lovejoy at Prøve Gallery, Sept. 12, 2026
Willem Dafoe Fan Club • Prøve Gallery • Sept. 12, 2026
Prøve Gallery in Downtown Duluth glows in intimate pink-and-blue lighting as an attentive audience sits on the floor or stands level with the band, Willem Dafoe Fan Club. Images were accessibly shot from in and around the band’s stage plot and from above, stage right.
Willem Dafoe Fan Club • Prøve Gallery • Sept. 12, 2026
Blush, a Duluth music venue that closed in 2022, is remembered in the Prøve space — in its fresh faces, welcoming to all.
Hollis Sparhawk of Willem Dafoe Fan Club • Prøve Gallery • Sept. 12, 2026
In the song, “Murder,” Hollis Sparhawk sings, “All this magic must have a cost.” With her head tilted, she grazes the kit in gentle sweeps.
Angel Marshall of Willem Dafoe Fan Club • Prøve Gallery • Sept. 12, 2026
Bassist Angel Marshall peers directly into the camera twirling from below.
Angel Marshall and Noah Ruona of Willem Dafoe Fan Club • Prøve Gallery • Sept. 12, 2026
There is nothing timely or necessary lost, and the band is holding the room.
Kenny Bressler of Willem Dafoe Fan Club • Prøve Gallery • Sept. 12, 2026
Willem Dafoe Fan Club • Prøve Gallery • Sept. 12, 2026
Guitarist Noah Ruona is grounded beside Kenny Bressler on synth and field recordings.
Mara Lovejoy • Prøve Gallery • Sept. 12, 2026
Alongside Willem Dafoe Fan Club at Prøve, former Duluth resident and still dearly beloved Mara Lovejoy careens over her piano. In the same light and gentle hold of the room, Lovejoy plays the keyboard earnestly for an audience full of gratitude for her visit from her new home in Washington.
Mara Lovejoy • Prøve Gallery • Sept. 12, 2026
She played a similarly intimate and heartfelt performance at Studio Cafe in December 2025. Her classically informed approach to glamorous, dramatic extensions is not quite jazz, but lush and full of diminished and dissonant chords that relate to her lyrics. She tonifies brooding with promise and hopefulness in her songs.
Mara Lovejoy • Prøve Gallery • Sept. 12, 2026
Lovejoy also plays guitar and has a gaze of focus with the instrument. She seems at ease with the rows of lovers listening.
Photographer Aaron Reichow is familiar to many who attend live music in Duluth. He’s the guy in the green vest, skulking around the stage taking photos of bands. In this series he shares photography from singular events and shares commentary with writer Elsa Krantz, who provides the accompanying text.