The blog got a facelift!! This means it's time for more music!
There is a delicate balance in live music. At what point does technical perfection (i.e. making sure every note is correct) hinder the performance? Classical music puts technical perfection first and instead of a lively and entertaining show, you get a group of people, seated, totally unaware of the audience and completely focused on nailing every single note. The inverse of this idea is something like punk rock: turn up the amps, who cares if you mess up, or if the drummer is a little off, just jump around and go nuts and the people will love it. Ideally, I guess you would want to be somewhere in the middle, a lively performance to excite the crowd, and a technically proficient performance. The Avett Brothers tend to ere on the side of the performance.
The Avett Brothers are a country, folk, bluegrass, rock group from North Carolina. The band, composed of two brothers, their friend on bass and a few other musicians (cellist and drummer) who come in and out. The band's newest album "I and Love and You" and its title track both favor much less banjo and more piano ballads. But live, the Brothers tend to go with the tried and true formula of banjo, acoustic guitar, and upright bass at full volume sung/screamed with as much energy as they can possibly muster. Their new live album is borderline exhausting, if not for the few slow ballads hidden throughout the set, you get the feeling they would just drop mid-song from exhaustion.
The live album captures a concert they did in their native Charlotte, NC after the release of "I and Love and You". The band is ecstatic to be home and you can feel it through the speakers. After wrecking the beginning of "The Ballad of Love and Hate", guitarist Seth Avett apologizes saying "I'm so happy I can hardly stand it right now" and starts the song again. It's that kind of a sloppy performance. They play so hard and so fast that they tend to drown each other out, guitars and banjos aren't balanced and they scream until it sounds like their throats bleed. But damn if it isn't fun!
You can hear them trying to catch their breath between words, their throats sound strained, the minimalist style of instrumentation is pretty bear bones, but still, it's a rollickin' good time (so good in fact that you want to leave the 'G' off the end of words and replace it with an apostrophe!). On their records (Emotionalism is my personal favorite so far), that sound doesn't always translate. They just don't seem to fit well in a recording studio, but on stage, it's what the Brothers are made for. They are at home, in their element, and all those songs that seem to be missing something, or just a little bit rough around the edges, sound perfectly at home when being played at full volume in front of a raucous crowd.
The song selection leans heavily on old favorites the oddly sweet "Murder in the City", a crowd and personal favorite "Shame" and "Talk on Indolence" the beginning of which must be heard to be believed. "Paranoia in B Flat Major" and "When I Drink" are other favorites. Some of the new stuff: "Kick Drum Heart" and "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise" also fits in well. The change from banjo rock to piano ballad isn't as weird as you would think it is. All in all, it's a hell of a lot more fun than a night at the opera.
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