Saturday night continued their run at with the second of three sold-out performances over the weekend. The show paid respect to many corners of the brothers’ now extensive discography, from their humble roots as North Carolina folk crooners to the polished mainstream success of their last three Rick Rubin-produced albums.
With a cool breeze blowing and a rainbow in the sky, songwriter Sturgill Simpson and his band opened the evening. Simpson’s voice was a thick throwback to vintage country greats, but lyrics were often lost to the wind and his heavy draw. The set was rooted firmly in a traditional country sound but occasionally branched into Petty-esque rockers with tasteful solos from guitarist Laur Joamets.
The Avett Brothers opened their headlining set with “Satan Pulls the Strings,” introducing the extensive band one by one to the capacity crowd. Drummer Mike Marsh’s beat was joined by Tania Elizabeth and Bob Crawford on fiddle, then Paul DeFiglia on bass, then Joe Kwon on cello–it wasn’t until the band was minutes into a boot-stomping jam that brothers Scott and Seth danced on stage to complete the track.
Seth and Scott Avett are at their best when the crowd is hanging on their every word and the emotional lyrics take musical priority. When every ad lib or change of tone draws cheers. The songwriting and dialed in vocal harmonies are what set them apart, an almost telepathic connection developed from a lifetime of complementing each other.
Largely for this reason, older material like a solo “Murder in the City” from Scott, “Distraction #74” and the bluegrass race “I Killed Sally’s Lover” were better received than pop-friendly newer tracks–an extended take of “Kick Drum Heart” that let Marsh open up the kit and Seth take center stage for an uncharacteristic electric guitar solo being a sure exception.
The band capped an already lengthy set with an impressive three-song encore. The Willy Nelson cover “Pick Up the Tempo” gave way to a feel-good “Love Like the Movies” and ended with “The Perfect Space.”
The final lyric of the night was a fitting comment to the brothers’ ongoing battle between the old and the new. Scott wished, “I want to have friends that I can trust/That love me for the man I’ve become not the man that I was.”
