Seeing perform at the on Monday night was a polarizing experience. With your eyes closed she and her band sounded incredible and their between song banter seemed genuine and humble. With your eyes open her stage presence came off as sporadically affected and awkward. Despite the occasional visual/aural disconnect it was her songwriting and her voice that prevailed.
Dylan LeBlanc attempted to get the night started by mumbling through a set of bland alt-country ballads. Without his backing band he was rendered a poor-man’s Jason Molina with a dash of Kermit the Frog. At one point he politely asked the audience to “please be quiet” which smacked of desperation despite his civility. As a result the audience applauded his efforts but largely ignored his plea.
The headlining set started off full of promise as the theme from “Twin Peaks” introduced the band to the stage. Lissie and her two-man backing band (a guitarist and a simultaneous bass player/drummer) started off the set delicately with “Wedding Bells,” a Hank Williams cover from Lissie’s 2009 EP “Why You Runnin?” After warming up with “Worried About” and “Here Before,” Lissie hit her stride with “When I’m Alone.” Her love of Stevie Nicks (or her inadvertent ability to conjure her voice) rang throughout almost every song in the set which was highlighted by “Record Collector” and “In Sleep.” True to her reputation as a lover of unexpected covers, Lissie closed out the night with Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness,” which got a few of the Bluebird bouncers to come out of the foyer and end the show with all eyes on the stage.
Lissie commanded attention Monday night, both as a woman with natural beauty and ability, and as someone who occasionally visually over-emoted the messages in her songs. But, overall, it was her music and her obvious humility that ultimately tipped the scales in her favor.
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Paul Custer is a Denver-based writer and regular contributor to Reverb.
Nathan Iverson is a Denver photographer and regular contributor to Reverb.
