Live shows have been a big part of my life since the age of like... 12. So I plan on adding show reviews to this.
I had discovered this band through Pandora and the song "Mango Tree" around 2009, my junior year of college. During that cold February in Columbus, I definitely wished I had a mango tree, in my backyard. Since then, I had swallowed all I could of the Stone siblings from Australia and what Wikipedia describes as their "folk-blues" stylings. I was never too much into folk until this band and always shy away from sappy songs about love. However, I found some spiritual closeness with the honesty and emotion that comes through their music. And their voices! Somehow, they are always honest from great tunes like "Horse and Cart", riproaring through the darkness on "Draw Your Swords" to slightly more poppy anthem "Big Jet Plane" to introspective about Disney's lies to young women in the song "Hollywood" . Since 2009, I have almost always had them on while I travel in an airplane. Relaxing soothing, colorful, nice music that also helps me fall asleep.
But sleep is the last thing I did last night! I had completely forgotten that they were visiting San Francisco, and paid out the butt for the originally 20$ tickets that were sold out at the Independent, a quite small venue. This venue allowed for a closeness and personality that is unrivaled by the stadium and festival stage throngs of most big acts. I got there alone, grabbed a beer at the bar and headed up front (away from the bass guitar sitting lonely on the unoccupied right side of the stage), and was able to get a spot leaning on the stage by all the guitars. Unwilling to give up such a primo location, I was happy to find out that a lady with glowsticks went around as a server and delivered beer right to my mouth!
After chatting a little with my neighbors in the crowd, the opening act came on. Conner Youngblood is a young dude with an absolutely angelic voice. He is one man band with lots of pedals, however, and his instrumentals and setting them up took a lot away from the general aura. I think he needs another member or two to get some more stage presence, but otherwise he's got some raw talent. A couple years and he will be melting your ears off for sure.
Then came the main act, with me at first mistaking the hairy guitarist right across from me as Angus. However, it all soon got sorted out and I really enjoyed the show. They played a little too much new music, but that's expected when they just came out with a new album and are on the tour for it. The new album is great, and I really love a couple of the songs, but I wanted more off of my favorite, 2007's A Book Like This. They left me wanting more because I can't get enough, but everything was absolutely wonderfully done. I love when a band is better live than on their album, and that was definitely the case. Seeing Julia live made me fall in love with her and her voice again - at once so ethereal and dreamy and yet completely salt of the earth in a real Outback woman kind of way. Couldn't hear Angus that much though.
And then for the encore. I don't think I could be more surprised and ecstatic and overjoyed and overflowing by one song. But covering The National's "Bloodbuzz Ohio" (a song that I also discovered on a wintry Ohio night), it was absolutely magical. I remember Julia recording her own version of the song on her latest album By The Horns, but goddamn! It was so fucking good with the whole band, the energy and sounds all amalgamating into one melody and set of lyrics which I love and know so well. I didn't want to yell them out too much since I was 3 feet away from the band, but it was hard. Absolutely marvelous and uplifting. Then they ended with the Santa Monica Dream, 15 kids in the backyard drinking wine. Angus and Julia took us on a journey through memory lane, heartbreak and desire, pain and joy. Painting this picture with soundwaves so full of color and depth, the catharsis left me absolutely breathless. Cleansed and revitalized, I ran off into the night to catch Bus 21 back down Hayes, back into the bowels of the city to catch the train home.
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