The Wood Brothers, Lake Street Dive – Wolf Trap, 6/8/2019

Row F, Seat 41 (about 1/3 of the way from the aisle at the right side of the Filene Center)

 

As the 7:30 starting time suggested, both acts had time for relatively lengthy sets, starting with the Wood Brothers for 75 minutes and then Lake Street Dive for about 90. I enjoyed the former, although I wasn’t at all familiar with them prior to an afternoon-of-the-show crash course on YouTube. The trio was more amplified than I had expected at the beginning of their set, even with Chris Wood using his upright bass for most of the first half of the set; their more straight-ahead rockers wound up reminding me of The Record Company. Rachael Price and Bridget Kearney from Lake Street Dive joined them briefly 30 minutes or so into the set. The last several songs were mainly tracks I had previewed, with especially impressive keyboard work from non-brother Jano Rix on “Luckiest Man”. They started and ended strong with covers: Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man” at the beginning, and The Band’s “Ophelia” to end their part of the evening. Other highlights included “Postcards From Hell” and a heartfelt extended tribute to the late Dr. John on “One More Day”.Setlist

From the start of their set, Lake Street Dive made it clear that they would be diving deep into their back catalog, opening with “Neighbor Song” (from their self-titled 2010 album) and “Rabid Animal”, a relatively obscure track from 2014’s Bad Self Portraits. As their set proceeded, they wound up doing 5 of the 11 tracks from the latter (which happens to be my favorite CD of theirs), and 5 of the 10 from last year’s Free Yourself Up. Most of their originals were uptempo, with the notable exception of Rachael’s stunning vocals on the slow ballad “Just Ask”. The high point of the show for me, however, was a 4-song mini-set of covers about halfway through, starting with Shania Twain’s “Still The One”, spotlighting the vocal talents of keyboardist (and newest member) Akie Bermiss. All 5 of them then moved in front of a single mic for a great version of The Kinks’ yearning “Strangers”. They then brought The Wood Brothers back for a fun rendition of “Everyday People” (with Kearney and Chris Wood dueling on their respective upright basses) and a rousing performance of The Staple Singers’ “I’m Just Another Soldier”. The final part of the show rewarded the crowd with some of the band’s better-known material (“Call Off Your Dogs”, “You Go Down Smooth”, and “Good Kisser”), with the title track from Bad Self Portraits as the first of two encores, just before most of the audience sang along to Hall and Oates’ “Rich Girl”.
Setlist