Emo's was one of a few clubs in Austin holding pre-festival shows featuring ACL acts. The bill inside included School of Seven Bells, which was tempting, but we decided to buy tickets for the outside stage and see Blitzen Trapper and The Walkmen. The place was pretty packed. Long lines at the bar, but the beer selection was okay and the bottles were reasonably priced.
We got a good spot up in the center rear of the area right in front of the stage. Visibility was good, sound was okay. Blitzen Trapper appears to have attracted a pretty good following. The crowd was pretty dense and gave the band an enthusiastic welcome.
Musically Blitzen Trapper sticks to a tried-and-true country-rock formula, but they do it well. Just be prepared to hear a bit of things that might not be covers of Flying Burrito Brothers, the Allmans or Buffalo Springfield, but sound like they could be. The band kept the energy high at the beginning of the show. Black River Killer evoked Harry Chapin and Neil Young. Other songs sounded a bit like CSN(&Y) and even the less-experimental side of the Grateful Dead. Wild Mountain Nation showcased the lead guitar work of Erik Menteer. Later in the set, they slowed things down a bit. Probably the night's highlight was right in the middle of their hour-long set, when they launched into Furr, which has done well on Austin radio stations and ME television, and it turned into an impromptu sing-along.
The crowd was even more cranked up for The Walkmen. Big contrast from a prior gig of theirs we went to at Pearl Street in Northampton, where the sparse and lethargic crowd brought down the performance. Here's a band that grew out of the collapse of a band might have been on the verge of making it big, at least in the world of indie rock, Jonathan Fire*Eater. But it wasn't to happen, so a trio of Fire*Eaters and two members of The Recoys formed The Walkmen. Their debut album as The Walkmen, 2002's Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone, was one of my favorite albums that year. Since then the output's included a couple of other great albums, 2004's Bows + Arrows and the last year's You & Me. They have loads of great songs now and have been playing together for a long time. This is a band right in its prime. I had a feeling Thursday night's gig would be better than our previous Walkmen concerts.
Emo's erupted when the band came out. The big fans pushed toward the front and sang along and flailed heads and arms to the anthemic tunes like In the New Year, Little House of Savages and of course crowd favorite and genuinely kick-ass song The Rat. The powerful beat-keeping of Matt Barrick propels those big songs. Barrick also serves as a key weapon in their many tunes, including several from latest album You & Me, that slowly build momentum. Lead singer Hamilton Leithauser showed his range and power on the punchier numbers as well as the more delicate or more nuanced songs like Red Moon (with the three-trumpet horn section that they featured in a few other songs), Canadian Girl, and I Lost You. After a two-song encore, the crowd eagerly called for a second, but the band called it a night.
Now the bar had been set high, and ACL hadn't even begun. Will Friday top the pre-show twofer? Day one has some great prospects, so I'd hesitate to bet against it.
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