Exit Signs

Via TwitPic

"You're all just a big, dark mass, dotted with exit signs... you have no idea how much of my life I have spent looking at the word 'Exit'."

-Gillian Welch, after the lights went down

So, finally attended a concert of my own choosing for the first time last night. Was it good? Yes, very. Could not have picked a better act than Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings. The above picture is the actual setlist for the night, courtesy of Welch's Twitter account.

First off, Farthing Auditorium needs to improve its sound tech, ASAP. The microphones were utterly awful and not at all complimentary to low-key Americana music. It was clean and relatively well-organized, though, so I can't complain too much.

But how was the actual act, you ask? Absolutely astounding. Here are a few of the highlights:

• "The Way It Goes" - One of my favorite tracks from the new album and a brilliant opener. Was expecting "Scarlet Town" to open the show, so it was a nice surprise.
• "Silver Dagger" - Not at all fond of the album version, but it was great live. I actually have a new appreciation for the studio version after hearing it in concert.
• "Hard Times" - Every bit as beautiful as the album version and even more stunning in person. Great way to close the first set.
• "My First Lover" - I whooped for this one; didn't think I was capable of that. Didn't feel as tight as the studio version, but still a good performance.
• "Revelator" - My God. Gorgeous vocal by Welch followed up with a jaw-dropping two-minute guitar solo by Rawlings. Rawlings' playing is possibly the best reason to see them live because he plays the living hell out of his guitar; you start wondering if he's going to make it catch fire. Crowd went completely wild for this one - as they should have.
• "Six White Horses" - Another track from the new album that I didn't love, but possibly the most fun track of the whole performance. "We came up with this routine in the privacy of our studio, not really figuring on having to perform it live," Welch commented. "Gets a little less embarrassing every time." Cue banjo, harmonica, knee-slapping, and clogging. Audience got a huge kick out of it.
• "Caleb Meyer" - Rawlings and Welch played the ever-loving shit out of this one, but the awful audio tech diminished the performance quite a bit. Their energy still came through and made the song enjoyable.
• "I'll Fly Away" - Closed the concert perfectly. Audience apparently didn't get that this is supposed to be a crowd participation number, though.

Take it from a person who saw them in a mediocre venue: their performance is transcendent and it would be foolish to pass up an opportunity to see them. Welch and Rawlings are simply excellent songwriters and musicians; they aren't an act that produces easily-consumed hooky pop music made for obnoxious trend-chasers or musically oblivious eighth graders. Their work is the kind that requires attention and focus to fully appreciate; give them that and they'll wow you.

>Sorry to jump-start my blog again with two posts on roughly the same subject. Been trying to write more and this concert is a big deal for me right now. Next post will not be about Gillian Welch, I swear.

Review: Gillian Welch - The Harrow and the Harvest

I'm relatively new to Gillian Welch and her music. I purchased Revival on sale and, though I recognized and appreciated its extraordinary craftsmanship, I never really connected to that recording. After watching Welch and Rawlings' excellent performance in the concert film Down from the Mountain, I decided to give them a second chance and purchased Time (The Revelator), which has since become one of my favorite and most-played albums. I later decided to purchase the rest of her catalog, including this release, which has been so good that I have yet to give Hell Among the Yearlings or Soul Journey more than a cursory listen.

The first half of this album is comprised entirely of some of the absolute best songs I have ever heard in my (admittedly limited) musical experience. "Scarlet Town" is a beautifully bitter tune that perfectly sets the stage for the rest of the album. Following that is "Dark Turn of Mind", which sounds a bit like a rootsified Patsy Cline song with infinitely more pathos. Then there are the first two "The Way" songs: "The Way it Goes" and "The Way it Will Be", the former being an elegantly simplistic uptempo tale bemoaning good friends gone bad (and eventually dead), while the latter is a hazy, downbeat number about placing the blame in a thoroughly broken relationship. The first half wraps up with the gorgeous "Tennessee", which skillfully (and narrowly) skirts an overdose of country music tropes about Heaven and whiskey and beautifully delivers a story of lust, sin, and a faint hope for redemption.

Side B is somewhat less impressive. "Down Along the Dixie Line" is lovely, but packs little emotional punch, and when Gillian sings that she "spent her childhood walking the wildwood" and "was so happy with mama and pappy," it feels more than a little calculated and constructed. The next track, the stomping, harmonica-filled "Six White Horses" initially feels tremendously out of place, but may very well grow on you after a few listens. Next is "Hard Times", which is achingly beautiful and by far my favorite track on the CD; it's a song about hardship that uses the bond between a farmer and one of his animals as a framing device, and it packs both a fantastic chorus and an immensely powerful ending. The penultimate track "Silver Dagger", which is actually an original composition rather than the traditional song, feels almost as out of place as "Six White Horses", but is still a good, well-constructed murder ballad with solid lyrics and a melody eerily reminiscent of "You Are My Sunshine". "The Way the Whole Thing Ends" closes the album beautifully; it pulls off sharp wit and a sleepy mood simultaneously.

The musicianship is excellent, the album never once feels overproduced, and the lyricism throughout is stunningly good, to the point where I would actually consider it a "spoiler" if I examined too many of the best bits in this review. The entire album carries the all-but-apocalyptic bleakness of the darkest songs on Revelator; this is not happy fare by any means. Virtually every song ends in death, heartache, and sorrow, with only faint hope remaining. It's an album that truly lives up to its title; these songs each describe harrowing experiences, and reaping the benefits of these hardships provides a rich harvest.

It may be a bit top-heavy on truly excellent material, but The Harrow & the Harvest still stands as one of the best albums in my collection, and has displaced Polly Jean Harvey's Let England Shake as my favorite album of 2011 thus far. Five of five stars.