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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Sun Studio

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Today, Jennifer takes us on another leg of our Southern roadtrip: our visit to the legendary Sun Studio. I’ll post my own observation tomorrow, but we had to share Jennifer’s wonderful photos with you all.

On Tuesday of last week, we put the road back in road trip and voyaged up to Memphis to see Sun Studio and Graceland.

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It is no exaggeration to say that rock and roll as we know it began here in a ragged room on a run down corner in Memphis. Today it is both an active recording studio and a museum.

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This is a reconstruction of the office of Marion Keisker, the lady who recorded Elvis Presley singing for the very first time, and, more importantly, kept a copy of the recording to share with Sam Phillips. We got to hear it during our tour, a little bit scratchy and rough but undeniably The King. I felt a little bit like I did when I watched Streetcar Named Desire for the first time, having to remind myself how new and different his voice and presence would have been, how it would have been a kind of lightening strike.

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Some of the guitars lined up against the wall, which are, from what I gather, used by musicians who record in there at night, after the tour groups leave. The room is full of pictures of Elvis and also of other luminaries who recorded there – Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Bono – and I ultimately couldn’t decide if I thought that would be intimidating or encouraging for new acts.

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And finally, the drumset, surrounded by Elvis, and in the foreground, a mic that was used by numerous early artists at Sun, including, possibly, Elvis Presley. The guide had hauled it out for purpose of Photo Opportunities, which some of our fellow tour members indulged in, and others did not. It was an interesting moment, both for the people trying to recreate a very specific kind of magic with various levels of success, and the microphone itself. It is simultaneously one of the many props in the floating Elvisland that is Memphis, a relic, a simple piece of machinery, and a tangible piece of the history of the place that all of us could touch with our own hands. Look at it long enough, and you can almost hear him inhaling, getting ready to launch into Hound Dog, and set the girls’ hearts a-flutter.

— Jennifer

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The Felice Brothers at Lebowski Fest in Louisville, KY, 7.16.10

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The recounting of the NTSIB roadtrip to points south will begin with the end. We are, as regular readers have surely noticed, a little fannish about the Felice Brothers, so when the opportunity presented itself to cap off our roadtrip by seeing the Brothers play Lebowski Fest, we couldn’t pass it up. It was the fourth Felice show for me, the third for Jennifer and our first show together. All very exciting, I assure you. And it was, for me, the most fun of the Felice shows I’ve experienced.

We set off from the hotel a little late and, sadly, missed “The Greatest Show on Earth” (a favorite of mine), but we sang along to “White Limo” as we crossed the parking lot and weaved our way as close to the stage as we could. The Brothers kept it upbeat for the drunken party crowd and Lebowski-ized a couple of songs, transforming “Where’d You Get Your Liquor?” to “Where’d You Get Your Caucasian?” and “Roll On, Arte” to “Roll On, Donny”. Other highlights included a guest spoon-player on “Whiskey in My Whiskey” and a cover of The Big Lebowski end credits tune “Dead Flowers”, which James introduced as a song from the Felice Brothers’ subway days.

It was, by far, the most effusively Felice-loving audience I’ve been in (well, at least the third of the audience that was crowded around the stage), and that certainly contributed to the enjoyment factor. Jennifer and I were even roped into what Jennifer later characterized as “a dude-bro kickline” during “Take This Bread”.

Due to the time constraints of Lebowski Fest, there was no encore, but after the equipment was loaded out and the big screen went up, the Felice Brothers perched atop their Winnebago to watch The Big Lebowski with us. A pretty sweet ending to a wonderful week.

(We failed to connect up with our friend Digger from Take This Bread, but he has promised me he’ll come to Cleveland in the autumn so we can take in a show at the Beachland Ballroom together. You’re all witness to this now so he can’t back out.)

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Cadillac Sky

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More Cadillac Sky = more good. Jennifer shares a little of her experience with the guys during their New York show. Panda says this show was off the hook, and I don’t doubt it for a second.

Continuing the Cadillac Sky theme for this week, here’s some pictures from the show I went to over Memorial Day weekend. They played at Union Hall – the random picture of the old lady that was hanging on the wall behind the stage has sadly disappeared – and it was a rockin’ good time.

Note: Union Hall tends to be dark, and I was struggling a little bit with the low light. I do take pictures in color, I promise, it just happened that this time the black and white ones were (mostly) the ones that came out the sharpest.

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Bryan Simpson

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Matt Menefee and David Mayfield

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Matt Menefee and Andy “Panda” Moritz

At one point Dave, Bryan and Ross came down off the stage and into the crowd to do a cover of “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie, which they made into a wrenching mountain ballad. By the end the whole room was singing along.

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Dave Mayfield, Bryan Simpson, and Ross Holmes

The absolute best cover of the evening, though (possibly of the year) was “Video Killed the Radio Star” done “B for Bluegrass”-style, which I didn’t photograph because I was too busy being filled with joy. Later in the evening there was also an epic guitar/fiddle battle, and I was pretty sure I detected bits and pieces of “Devil Went Down to Georgia” amid the cascading flurries of notes.

And finally, here they are doing a Stanley Brothers song barbershop quartet-style:

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— Jennifer

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JP and the Chatfield Boys & Cadillac Sky at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, OH, 6.5.10

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JP and the Chatfield Boys

The evening began a little quietly with JP & the Chatfield Boys playing straight-up bluegrass of a somewhat sedate nature. While they’re certainly a skilled group, they were pretty by-the-book. But the harmonizing on “Midnight Moonlight” stood out, as did the fiddling on “Stoney Lonesome”. They would be a great group to catch at an evening outdoor event.

Cadillac Sky

A sure sign of a good show: when you, as an audience member, are exhausted, yet the band is still going.

To call a Cadillac Sky show a bluegrass show would be akin to attempting to recreate a Brueghel painting with one brushstroke – there is so much more going on. Cadillac Sky assured us they meant business by opening their 2-hour-plus set (from my calculations, but I didn’t pay close attention to what time they came out, so I may be off – I can tell you they played longer than I’ve seen any band play in years) with a high-energy rendition of “Trapped Under the Ice” that only hinted at the levels of energy and excitement they would build up as the night moved along. Exuberantly rambling through nearly all of the songs on their upcoming album, Letters in the Deep, all the songs from their Weary Angel EP and some earlier fare. My favorite CS song, “3rd Degree”, was wrenching. “Weary Angel” became a blistering rock-out with David Mayfield taking the lead on electric guitar. The Stanley Brothers’ “How Mountain Girls Can Love” was given the barbershop quartet treatment. And I may have embarrassed myself by actually jumping up and down to CS’s stellar cover of “Video Killed the Radio Star”.

It was possibly the best show I’ve ever attended, combining elements from all of my past favorite shows: the joy of a Hothouse Flowers show, the fun and humor of a They Might Be Giants show, the crowd-hushing ability of an A.A. Bondy show, the heart-aching beauty of a Church (the Australian band) show, the full-on rock of a Black Keys show. There was laughter, dancing, booty-shaking, beatboxing (yes, seriously – and, yes, it worked), and it was difficult not to get choked up when Ohio-born David Mayfield grew teary-eyed as he sang the last verses of “Tired Old Phrases” (And I’m sorry for being so bad/To my dear old mother and dad/I threw some fits/They put up with it/And now I owe them all that I am. And some day when my folks meet their end/If by chance I live longer than them/For the love that they gave/And the music we made/I’ll be proud to have called them my friends.) to his parents, who were in the audience.

Inevitably, when I go to a show, I begin writing my review in my head as soon as the show is over. My initial review of the Cadillac Sky show was going to be one line: If you were in Cleveland the night of June 5 and weren’t at the Cadillac Sky show at the Beachland Ballroom, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? But perhaps berating you is not the best way to talk you into seeing Cadillac Sky when they play near you. How about this: Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog, Jennifer, said of the CS show she attended at Union Hall in New York that it was possibly the happiest she’s been at a rock concert in her life. A Cadillac Sky show makes you feel good to be alive.

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Miss Derringer, Cracker, The Reverend Horton Heat

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This week, Jennifer shares shots from what is possibly the most perplexing tour line-up ever, Cracker and the always-great Reverend Horton Heat. Opening on this stop was Miss Derringer, led by lowbrow artist Liz McGrath.

Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Miss Derringer :

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Liz McGrath and Morgan Slade

And in color:

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Liz McGrath and Morgan Slade

They are, in fact, as hot and as sharp as their namesake pistol. That was terrible, wasn’t it? I’m sorry. But they really are. They came out to crowd that was hanging back, sitting on the mysterious couches (which I had never seen in the High Line before, it was most perplexing) and proceeded to get a whole lot of people up and dancing. Possibly I have seen Grease a few too many times, but I found myself thinking this music is begging for a floor full of girls in poodle skirts getting flipped up and over their sweethearts’ heads. Tough girls, that is, in black poodle skirts with blood-red petticoats and lipstick to match.

Anyway, the High Line has a nice big stage, and they were spread out across it. Here’s the guitars on the other side:

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Nick Bacon (guitar) and Sylvain de Muizon (bass)

And the drums:

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Cody James

They were followed by Cracker , who apparently have a new record out:

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Johnny Hickman, David Lowery

And then it was time for the Reverend:

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And in color, with a little secret smile:

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The set was a mixture of old (Bales of Cocaine) and new (Don’t Take the Baby to the Liquor Store), and at one point, he had people slam-dancing to Bill Haley and the Comets. That right there kind of sums up why I love this band. Anyway, in closing, here is Johnny Hickman (Cracker) hamming it up on the electronic harmonica:

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— Jennifer

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Butch Walker and the Black Widows/Locksley

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This week, Jennifer takes a chance on Butch Walker, with some lovely results.

Butch Walker and the Black Widows/Locksley, Webster Hall, 5/20/2010

I kind of decided to go to this show on a whim. Up until relatively recently I’d been neutral to indifferent about the music of Butch Walker, but then he came out with I Liked You Better When You Had No Heart and I developed a fondness for Pretty Melody, because, well, it does have a pretty melody. And it kind of sounds like a backwoods orchestra creaking to life, one instrument at a time. So when his name popped up in one of my concert alerts I thought all right, let’s go see what this is all about.

I am really, really glad I went, because it was an incredible evening. He played a variety of instruments, including a banjolele – an actual cowbell also made an appearance, though it was played by guitarist Chris Unck – and we danced in the pit, singing along and clapping. He covered Weezer and Hall & Oates, and at one point towards the end, jumped in to the crowd and led us in a variation on the Twist, in order to drown out the muffled sounds of disco coming from the floor below us. It was crazy, and hilarious, and one of the best shows I’ve been to for a while.

But to begin, properly, at the beginning, the first band on the stage was Locksley . Their MySpace genre is “garage/pop/rock”, but apparently they have also previously classified themselves as “doo-wop punk” which I think is far more accurate. They have the three-part harmonies down, and also they look like they might have just wandered off the set of a remake of Grease, from the top of their rolled sleeves right down to the curve of Jordan Laz’s ducktail.

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Jesse Laz and Jordan Laz

Live they tend to drift more towards the “garage” and “punk” end of the spectrum, with excellent results. They put on a great high-energy show, which last Thursday included a particularly good cover of The White Stripes’ Hotel Yorba and an instrumental snippet of Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll No. 2.

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Kai Kennedy and Sam Bair

And then it was time for Butch Walker and the Black Widows.

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Butch Walker

He played the first two songs a) on the piano and b) practically in the dark, and none of my pictures of it came out very well. This one is from somewhere around song 3 or 4, after he had moved to the middle of the stage. I was particularly fond of the use of the fairy lights on stage.

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Chris Unck and Fran Capitanelli

I was on the rail on the far left, so a good many of my pictures are of these two gentlemen. In addition to the guitar, Chris Unck also played the lap steel, maracas, the tambourine, and, as noted above, the cowbell.

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Jake Sinclair

I spent most of the evening thinking of Jake Sinclair as Jake the Elusive Bassist, although by “elusive” I really meant “standing on the other side of Butch Walker where I can’t get a clear shot of him.” This is one of the better pictures I did manage to take. The gentleman behind him is Dr. Pat the Tour Doctor, who came out in the middle of the show to sit in and join the fun.

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And, in conclusion, two more of Butch Walker. The one above is him perched on the edge of the stage at the end of the main set, after a raw and powerful performance of Best Thing You Never Had. I do love the stark stillness of it, but the show didn’t end on that note. So in closing, I give you the one below, from the encore, from not long after he informed us that “Tiny guitar means party!”:

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— Jennifer

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Futurebirds & Jessica Lea Mayfield at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, OH, 5.19.10

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Futurebirds

With six members playing pedal steel guitar, bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, mandolin and drums – switching off instruments and vocals throughout the set – Futurebirds have a hell of a lot of strings, but you wouldn’t mistake them for a string band. You might mistake them for a really big bar band, though. I’ll just be honest and say that their music didn’t do much for me, but their sense of humor did. A band who can play to a nearly-empty hall and still enjoy the hell out of themselves is okay in my book. The crowd was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and they were rewarded when the band kicked in three great songs at the end of their set, one led by drummer Payton Bradford who came out from behind his kit to strap on a Fender and go.

(One song was dedicated to LeBron James. “This one’s for LeBron. Maybe he’ll stay,” they said, perhaps in a bid to further endear themselves to the crowd. “He won’t,” came the reply out of the audience. The blacklash has begun. Have fun with that, King James.)

Jessica Lea Mayfield

Jessica Lea Mayfield is so laconic in speech and movement that you may sometimes feel as though you’re watching slow-motion film when you see her. This has led some to deem her bland. But Mayfield’s true talent – that of holding a microscope up to emotion, whether good, bad, ugly or indifferent – doesn’t require glitz or stagey charisma. But don’t think for a moment that Mayfield doesn’t know how to capture a catchy tune. The wordless refrain of “Kiss Me Again”, as one example, will lodge itself in your brain the first time you hear it.

Mayfield, who is impressively pale and is all skinny arms and legs, seems shy between songs, bowing her head bashfully as she thanks the audience for their cheering appreciation. But in her song subject matter and in her voice, Mayfield is bold. Though only 20 years old, she has long had an old soul self-awareness, and while she seems her age between songs, once she is playing and singing, Mayfield becomes an ancient sage, holding up a mirror to all of us as she holds one up to herself.

But a Jessica Lea Mayfield show is not a solemn occasion, partially thanks to her support band which, this evening, consisted of her brother, David, on upright bass, Richie Kirkpatrick (in unnervingly tiny shorts) on electric guitar and a drummer whose name I didn’t catch (not Anne Lillis). Kirkpatrick is sometimes caricaturish, but entertaining, in his rock and rolling, and David Mayfield is a powerhouse of energy and vitality. During the scorching crescendo of “I Can’t Lie to You, Love” (don’t let it be said that Mayfield and company don’t know how to kick it), the Mayfield brother could be seen laying on the stage, holding the bass up with his feet as eh played, then laying the bass down and beating percussion on the strings.

Perhaps Jessica Lea Mayfield’s music is not for everyone, but it’s still surprising – and disappointing – how small the audience was for the northeast Ohio native’s show. But , as seems so often the way within our little cradle of civilization, Mayfield will gain more recognition and success ass he continues to tour with friends like the Avett Brothers and the Black Keys, and then NEO will embrace her with open arms after the rest of the world warmly embraces that which was right under our noses the entire time.

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Suckers & Local Natives at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, OH, 5.11.10

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Local Natives (in-store performance at Music Saves)

Playlist
Wide Eyes
Cards & Quarters
Warning Sign
Airplanes

I may be a big puss and a little too easily affected by music, but as soon as Local Natives broke into their trademark harmonizing at the beginning of their Music Saves pre-gig in-store performance, I felt a little moisture trying to escape from my face. I wasn’t crying – just… leaking a little awe.

This was quite a turnaround considering it hadn’t been that long ago that I was finding myself unable to get into the Local Natives groove (it was that backyard SXSW performance captured by Yours Truly that finally got me to tap in). Lucky for me that there’s no expiration date on good music.

It struck me that Local Natives’ performance was almost the antithesis of the Felice Brothers’ performance I had just experienced the night before. I am a big fan of slopping, emotional music, which the Felice Brothers are pros at creating, but there is certainly something to be said for the ability of a band like Local Natives. As a unit, they are so tight and their talents s complement each other so well that it’s easy to tell that some of these guys have been playing together half their lives. Though that’s certainly not to say that Local Natives’ music lacks emotion. Their song subject matter often sprouts from a very personal level and the musical accompaniment can tap straight into the listener’s center. Plus, Kelcey Ayer has a howl that makes you want to give him a hug and ask if he’s okay.

Experiencing the music of Local Natives in the small space of Music Saves, with acoustic instruments and no mics, mere feet from where you stand, accentuating their immaculate vocals and the warm heart of their music, is extraordinary. If you have the chance to hear them this way, jump on it.

Suckers

A guy who looks like he just escaped from a John Hughes movie casting call walks out on stage. He’s wearing a striped shirt with a red tie screen printed on the front, red sneakers, and he has straggly designs markered across his face.

“My name is Brian, and my talent is drumming.”

He sits down behind his kit (also red) and goes to work. After a little showing off, his compatriots take the stage. There is another refugee from the John Hughes extras pool (guitarist Austin Fisher), someone’s dad (bass player Pan) and a spectacularly colorful grunge glam rocker (singer Quinn Walker). This is Suckers, and they’re going to go straight to the good stuff with “Before Your Birthday Ends”.

I had heard Suckers around the ‘net thanks to the likes of Daytrotter and Stereogum and liked what I heard, but by the time I was standing in front of the stage, I had forgotten what they sounded like. I couldn’t have been more happily reminded when they broke into “Birthday” with its bouncing groove and Walker’s falsetto vocals (not to detract from his normal voice, but I almost wish Walker sang in falsetto all the time).

Keeping up the groove through the show, the band members did double- and sometimes triple-duty on vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, percussion percussion percussion and even a little brass, Fisher being the only one who didn’t seem like he was going to jump out of his skin with ebullience. Even without Walker telling us what a “great space” we had in the Beachland and how much fun he was having, their joy was apparent. The audience felt the joy and returned it, giving the band some of the biggest parting cheers I’ve ever heard for an opening act. If Suckers aren’t headlining their own tour the next time around, it’ll be a surprise.

Other songs played (in lieu of an actual set list): “Black Sheep”, “It Gets Your Body Moving”, “Roman Candles”.

Local Natives

Playlist
Camera Talk
World News
Wide Eyes
Cards & Quarters
Shape Shifter
Warning Sign
Cubism Dream
Stranger Things
Airplanes
Who Knows Who Cares
Sun Hands

After experiencing the beauty of the Music Saves acoustic performance, there was a little part of my mind concerned that the big, plugged-in show would not be as invigorating. But when Local Natives took the Beachland stage, they proceeded to give that little part of my mind a smack in its metaphorical face. Like their tour mates, Local Natives bring a lot of percussion and a lot of joy to the stage. Their amplified performance, while three times more energetic than their acoustic performance, is no less tight and no less affecting.

There was a little instrument switching off between songs, Ryan Hahn putting down the guitar for drums for a little while and Taylor Rice and Kelcey Ayer trading off guitar and keyboard duties (Ayer sometimes playing keys and percussion while singing), while bass player Andy Hamm and drummer Matt Frazier kept mostly to their posts (though Hamm did join Frazier a couple of times to add to the percussion). His time behind the keyboard was the only time Rice stopped bouncing around the stage, sweating all over the place.

While their songs benefit from quieter, stripped down playing, their versatility means they also benefit from big, loud amplification, keeping the crowd bouncing along throughout the show. And you can bet everyone was shouting along to the big chorus on “Sun Hands”.

The drawback of being a headlining band with one album is that you’re left with no songs to encore with, and even though the audience really wanted Local Natives back for some more, there was no more to give. But there was no feeling that we hadn’t been given our money’s worth and then some.

Here’s a video from the Local Natives’ in-store performance of my current favorite from them, “Cards & Quarters”:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSJEF3nZUFk]

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Cassette & the Felice Brothers at the Beachland Tavern in Cleveland, OH, 5.10.10

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Cassette

(I’m not very familiar with their songs, so I wasn’t able to construct a playlist.)

Cassette has a violinist and a cellist. These are good things. Cassette also has a keyboardist who seems to enjoy the hell out of himself and a singer whose voice really shines from time to time. These are also good things. Their songs are of the softer, more subtle variety, which A) doesn’t seem like the best fit for a Felice Brothers opener and B) is not my favorite kind of music, to be honest.

Perhaps it was because they were on their last night of their tour with the Felice Brothers, but Cassette’s music lacked oomph and many songs seemed not so much to end as peter out. Their set ended, however, on a highlight as the band, especially the cellist and keyboardist, let go and played their hearts into a burning crescendo. More fire like that throughout Cassette’s set would serve them well.

The Felice Brothers

Playlist
(?)
Greatest Show on Earth
Love Me Tenderly
Katie Dear
Murder By Mistletoe
Stepdad
River Jordan
Fuck the News
Run Chicken Run
Goddamn You, Jim
Whiskey in My Whiskey
Honda Civic
White Limo
Endless Night
Take This Bread
Frankie’s Gun!
Two Nickels (? – Farley song)
Ballad of Lou the Welterweight
Two Hands
-encore-
St. Stephen’s End
Dancehall
Helen Fry

As soon as the Felice Brothers took the stage, it was obvious they were several sheets to the wind. This is not a bad sign where the Felice Brothers are concerned. If you want a neat, orderly show, the Felice clan was never going to be your best bet. Still, no one fell off the small stage, and the only casualties were some booze and a key from James Felice’s accordion (leaving the instrument on the floor near a dancing Ian Felice was probably not the greatest idea).

I’ve been to a few Felice shows now and can tell you they are consistent in their chaos. They pepper their always crowd-pleasing rabble-rousing tunes like “Frankie’s Gun!” and “Run Chicken Run” with sing-a-longs like “Whiskey in My Whiskey” and their cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Two Hands” with new songs, like “Dancehall” and the funked-up “Honda Civic” and slow numbers that showcase Ian Felice’s stellar songwriting. This night’s “Greatest Show on Earth” was the most spirit-raising version I’ve witnessed so far, and I was immensely pleased to hear my new favorite, the as-yet-unreleased “Endless Night”, which is a bit of a departure in sound and just beautiful. Always a family affair, whether blood or adoptive, the lead duties were shared by James Felice, Greg Farley and Christmas/Josh/whatever-he’s-calling-himself-now, though the majority of tunes are always carried by Ian Felice – and rightfully so with his aforementioned songwriting skills and worn, dusty voice. They also brought Cassette singer Samantha Jones on stage to share vocals on “Ballad of Lou the Welterweight”.

The Tavern at the Beachland is a just a small bar with a stage at one end, making it an ideal setting for a Felice Brothers show as they always excel in intimate quarters where they can feed off the vibe of the audience. This night’s crowd was into it, and there were a number of avid fans littered throughout the room, which was heartening for the Brothers’ first show in the CLE.

Felice Brothers shows are always a good recommendation if you want a ramshackle good time and are especially illustrative of the joy and abandon that music can (and should) encompass if you are used to more removed shows in larger venues.

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The Low Anthem & The Avett Brothers at the House of Blues in Cleveland, OH, 2.27.10

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The Low Anthem Setlist
(in no particular order and incomplete)

Cage the Songbird
Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around
Apothecary
To the Ghosts Who Write History Books
This God Damn House
The Horizon is a Beltway
Don’t Let Nobody Turn You ‘Round
Cigarettes and Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women

I’ll admit upfront that I have probably been spoiled by seeing some of the best acts around perform in hole-in-the-wall bars – from the Afghan Whigs at the Cactus Club in San Jose, California, to A.A. Bondy at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor, Michigan – and this probably colors my view of the larger venues, but… I hate the House of Blues. It is partially the odd and claustrophobic layout of the venue and partially the disposition of the clientele. (It doesn’t help that I top out at 5’3″ and since I didn’t get to the sold-out show early enough to be close to the stage, I felt disconnected as I stood behind a wall of people a full head taller than me, affording me only a few glances of certain areas of the stage.)

You have to love the Low Anthem for putting their all into trying to overcome the obstacles. They played with great energy and sweetness and did manage to get the attention of the drunken, gabby audience a couple of times, but there were times when they were almost drown out by the loud talking of the audience amongst itself (one of whom started complaining as soon as the band started into their fourth song and didn’t stop until the band finished their set because “Oh my god, are they playing another song?”).

Still, I was able to hear enough to confirm that Jocie Adams and Ben Knox Miller can both belt out a killer vocal and Jeff Prystowsky has to be the smilingest musician I’ve ever witnessed. The Low Anthem have a good range from deeply pretty to aggressively foot-stomping, which they accomplish through more instrument changes than I’ve ever seen a band make. It’s a shame I couldn’t hear the clarinets they brought out for a couple of songs.

The Avett Brothers setlist
(in no particular order and less woefully incomplete)

Distraction #74
Laundry Room
January Wedding
Murder in the City
Colorshow
Tear Down the House
The Perfect Space
If It’s the Beaches
Where Have All the Average People Gone (Roger Miller cover)
I Would Be Sad
And It Spread
Please Pardon Yourself
Go To Sleep
Famous Flower of Manhattan
Slight Figure of Speech
Shame
At the Beach
Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise (? – I may just be hallucinating that they played this)

Part of the fun of attending a live show is seeing what’s happening onstage: who’s playing what, who’s whispering to whom, who just took his shirt off, etc. The fact that I could only see half of the Avett Brothers at any given time certainly affected my enjoyment of the show. But, too, the band seemed to have a little less of their famous energy and zeal than I have witnessed in live show videos and were pulling out many of their more sedate songs. Not to say that their performance was poor by any means – the Avetts are consummate professionals in the best sense of the term and they seem to truly love their audience – and the crowd of young devotees in front of me certainly loved it (I enjoyed watching one of them sing along with his eyes closed, looking like every, single word meant something to him), but I just did not feel moved for much of the show.

There were exceptions. “Laundry Room”, for instance, transcended all the issues of the night to be a perfect performance. Scott Avett’s solo delivery of “Murder in the City” was touching. They played my personal favorite, “Colorshow”, which is rousing no matter what. And they put in a great rendition of “Go to Sleep”, with the crowd helping out on the “la la la”s, which closed the pre-encore part of the show.

A sweet note: When the band left the stage, that same group of young devotees in front of me again took up the “la la la”s of “Go to Sleep”, and this spread throughout the venue as the call that brought the band back for their encore.

It was a good show – and we appreciate that the Avetts came through Cleveland when so many roots-based/Americana acts skip Cleveland, and sometimes Ohio, completely – it just wasn’t the banjo-shredding, scream-a-thon I was expecting.

More of my very poor photos from the show can be found at the NTSIB Flickr account.