Author: Michael Toland
Date: 04-27-12 12:46
What I saw the other night was definitely not folk. I guess because his first record was performed primarily on acoustic guitar, he's considered folk.
He played a few songs I thought were pretty good ("Blood Bank," "Towers," "Calgary," "Re: Stacks"), but most of his tunes seem pretty slight. The best song he did was a cover of Patty Griffin's "Nobody's Crying." And he sings almost all of them in one of the most annoying falsettos I've ever heard. Apparently women swoon over his voice, but to me it was eardrum-piercing. It was made all the more annoying by him singing a few tunes in his regular voice, thus proving he doesn't have to be irritating, but that it's a choice.
He closed the main set with a song called "Beth/Rest," which was centered around terrible-sounding 80s keyboards and noxious, busy sax playing. When did Phil Collins become an influence on indie rock?
I will give him this, though: outside of "Beth/Rest," he made very good use of his horn players (most of whom doubled on other instruments) - they played mostly non-cliched lines and arrangements.
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