Orchestra,
Row E, Seat 109 – dead center, several rows back from the stage
While I like
the band Dawes a lot, I don’t follow every interview and news item, so I was
surprised when five guys, rather than four, walked up on stage around 9:15
Saturday evening. Turned out that the band recently added guitarist Duane Betts
(son of Dickey Betts of Allman Brothers fame) to their touring lineup. The
change actually makes a big difference; while Taylor Goldsmith still played a
mean guitar himself at many points in the show, he no longer had to handle all
of the guitar work himself in addition to all the lead vocals. This let him be
more expressive gesture-wise on some of the songs, and also produced a couple
great two-guitar jams.
The band
started off with “Things Happen” (the lead single from their just-released All Your Favorite Bands LP), followed by
two more tracks from that album, “Don’t Send Me Away” and “Somewhere Along The
Way.” The latter was stunning with its vocal harmonies and guitar work near the
end, producing the first of many standing ovations. They then went “back to the
beginning” for “That Western Skyline”, the very first track from their debut
CD. They continued with a mix of older material (hitting my favorite, “A Little
Bit Of Everything”, about midway through) and a few more tracks from the new
album. The finally got to “When My Time Comes”, getting everyone to their feet
and singing along, and concluded the main set around 10:45 with “From The Right
Angle” – not one of my favorites, but it worked well live. They returned with a
couple of must-performs, “Time Spent In Los Angeles” and “From A Window Seat”,
winding up with the title track from the new LP, which was particularly appropriate
given its reference to Charlottesville in the first verse.
Bottom line –
rock & roll lives! Best show I’ve seen so far this year, against some tough
competition.
Setlist from
setlist.fm
Gill Landry,
who’s also in the band Old Crow Medicine Show, did a 35-minute opening set,
going solo on acoustic guitar for the first few songs, then bringing out a
drummer and a fiddle player. The show was bookended by the first and last
tracks from his current self-titled album, “Funeral In My Heart” and “Bad Love”.
(As you might gather, Gill is a mournful kind of guy.) He did have the best
one-liner of the evening when introducing his second song: “I actually wrote
this one for Katy Perry, but she never wrote back.”
