Friday was a likely one-time only chance for Denver fans of to hear stripped-down versions of their favorite songs by the suddenly, temporarily solo L.A.-based indie band.
Frontman and writer Alex Brown Church is winding down a 30-city solo acoustic tour that he promised does not signal a departure from, or an end to, Sea Wolf. “Itap just a chance to try something new,” he said privately after Friday’s well-attended and graciously received set at the .
Still, while fans were eager for the opportunity to be serenaded by the Sea Wolf troubadour, there was clearly some concern that a tour of this sort can’t bode well for the future of the band.
That Church played Sea Wolf songs without exception was a pretty fair clue that we can take him at his word.
Wearing a familiar plaid shirt, the amiable Church looked awfully lonely standing up there all alone on an otherwise empty Hi-Dive stage surrounded not by his five familiar bandmates but by boxes of gear scrawled with the Sea Wolf name.
Sea Wolf, full pack, is an irresistible band, but Friday brought the focus back to Church’s earnest and ruminative lyrics, which often deal with fractured families and the ongoing search for a happiness thatap so often tantalizingly close but just at arm’s length. And his songs lost little in translation to acoustic. Surely anyone who knows “I Made a Resolution” well was hearing the percussion and other backing instruments in their heads even though they weren’t being played.
And fans got their full-band fix sated at the end of the set, when the Colorado-born Sera Cahoone and Patrick Park joined Church for his encore, giving a departing jolt to Sea Wolf’s perhaps best-loved song, “You’re A Wolf.”
Cahoone, sister of Kal, and Park, a Columbine High grad, are supporting Church for this entire tour, which stretches from California to Montreal. They all played together the night before at Stargazers in Colorado Springs.
Church played familiar songs like “Winter Windows” while trading off between four guitars (not all of them acoustic!) and trying his level best to infuse the evening with banter. It was awkwardly funny, for example, when he said he’s been urged to tell us some of the stories behind his songs. He then proceeded to explain with complete earnestness that his next song was conceived in one city, written in another and recorded in a third – seemingly oblivious to the fact that this actually told us nothing about the meaning of his song.
Saying, “You’re going to have to be my band,” Church implored the crowd to clap along to “The Garden You Planted,” and they later cheered appreciatively for “Middle Distance Runner,” “Wicked Blood” and more. The encore began with a poignant “Leaves in the River,” a recurring Sea Wolf theme.
But it was Church’s forlorn and straightforward explanation of “Turn the Dirt Over” that made that song the emotional highlight of the evening. Itap about his brother, a Seattle firefighter, who died in the line of duty. Itap a 7-inch “vinyl-and-digital-only” single that is being made available for this tour.
John Moore founded in 2001 and is now the paper’s theater critic. Follow him on
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