Star Tribune
Video (11:41) Perkins and David met 15 years ago on the local bar-band circuit. But they've performed together only once before.

Kat Perkins and Nicholas David met 15 years ago while working the Twin Cities bar circuit in their respective rock bands. They reconnected after both made deep runs on NBC's "The Voice," he in 2012, she two years later.

Since then, they've made appearances on the same program, but only once before did they sing together, at a 2014 Minneapolis benefit.

Now the rock siren and hippie soul man have teamed up for a rare performance of two classics for the Star Tribune's virtual grandstand. Perkins injects her personality into Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide," and David's funky piano and soulful vocalizing frame Bill Withers' "Lean on Me."

During the pandemic, Perkins has kept busy by delivering pop-up concerts, singing telegrams and an occasional motivational speech via Zoom, featuring her message and theme song, "Fearless."

David has been hunkered down in St. Paul with his wife and three kids, posting an occasional performance video and co-hosting his weekly radio show, "East of Here, West of Now," on community station KFAI (90.3 FM) Tuesdays at 10 a.m.

Jon Bream has been a music critic at the Star Tribune since 1975, making him the longest tenured pop critic at a U.S. daily newspaper. He has attended more than 8,000 concerts and written four books (on Prince, Led Zeppelin, Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan). Thus far, he has ignored readers’ suggestions that he take a music-appreciation class.

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