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| photo by: Stacy Schwartz |
There are bands that have style and bands that are so chock full of raw, unadulterated talent that witnessing it almost brings a person to tears. The rarest of bands have both, but they are few and far between. Sunday at First Avenue saw one band heavy on style and one so full of talent they already seem destined for a place on the all-time classics list. It's not often you see an opening band blow the headliner out of the water but that is exactly what happened Sunday night.
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| photo by: Stacy Schwartz |
Dawes immediately brings to mind the sun-drenched, countrified canon of
CSN&Y but lead singer Taylor Goldsmith's lyrics are have much less
of a political bent, are incredibly introspective and very carefully
crafted. In between songs Goldsmith mentioned that they have such a good
time playing shows in Minneapolis that they wish they were from here to
loud, approving hoots and applause; "But we're from L.A., we can't help
that." he dryly noted. They played two new songs from their record,
that is slated for a fall release, one of which ("Fire Away"), may be
better than anything on their debut,
North Hills, an excellent sign
considering the formidable strength of that album. They got the audience
to help with the final chorus of "When My Time Comes," not missing a
beat when they began to play the song again. There is no pretension with
Dawes. No trickery, nothing rings false. They had a workman-like
approach to the set with just the right amount of flair. In short, the
sum is much more than their parts.
Then we had Edward Sharpe and the
Magnetic Zeros to deal with, and things quickly changed.
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| photo by: Stacy Schwartz |
On paper Edward Sharpe and company, led by former Ima Robot lead singer
Alex Ebert seem, at worst, interesting. The music, on record, only drags
a little in a few places. None of this translates to the live show at
all. Ebert took the stage dressed as some sort of bastardized version of
a messiah -- in wool socks. Things quickly got weirder from there. The
ten-piece band came off like they hadn't practiced in weeks, if at all.
There were missed cues, stoppages to talk to the crowd at odd times
during several of the songs and at one point Ebert made a
much-larger-than-needed production (roughly five minutes) of finding a
person in the crowd to whom he could sing "Happy Birthday". After that
person was found, he simply abandoned the rendition about one-third of
the way through. With the sole exception of "Home," which was spot on
and actually pretty great, the rest of the set seemed to meander without
any real direction or focus. At one point the crowd was awash in the
unmistakable glow of cell phones, making it pretty obvious that the
majority of people in attendance were flat-out bored. He staged some
type of sit-in during the encore but, like much of the set, it was just
another action with no real substance. The hippie-dippy stage presence
only takes away from the music and they committed the cardinal sin of
touring bands: they're far more enjoyable on record.
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