By: David Colton
As I made my way down 9th street, I kept my eyes peeled in search of someone else going to the Tallest Man show alone. 'Who cares?' I thought, trying to trick myself into thinking that I would rather be here alone than with one of my friends from Evanston. I pushed that weird feeling of loneliness aside when I got to the doors and was greeted by two charming girls who left me with an awesome KCOU student radio sticker. The venue was about a quarter of the way full, so I managed to get a pretty great spot.
After a few minutes of making friendly conversation with a couple of locals, the lights in the Blue Note went down. The room was pretty big, and it was relatively empty by the time the opener began. Her name was Aly Spaltro, AKA Lady Lamb, and she captured my full attention the second she stepped on stage. She was wearing jeans and a leather jacket, standing alone. I don't really know what I was expecting when I saw her, this young, prettygirl with nothing but an electric guitar. I suppose I was thinking she'd deliver some sort of singer-songwriter coffee shop act, but I was dead wrong. As she strummed the first chord, her guitar rang out with a sort of grungy, distorted sound, and she immediately jumped into her setlist.
This girl was absolutely, for lack of a better word, badass. She ripped on the guitar and completely filled the room with her powerful alto voice which sounded strikingly similar to Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak. What made the experience even better was the guy directly behind me who knew every word to every song and insisted on letting everyone know this. At one point, I turned around to see what the guy looked like, and came face-to-face with a massive guy in his thirties with a full beard dancing his heart out. Right on, man. With the guy tearing it up behind me and Spaltro tearing up the stage for a good 45 minutes, it made for a hell of a show and left me reeling with thoughts and questions. As she smiled and thanked the audience (whom responded with overwhelming applause), I realized that I had to talk to her. Of course, I didn't, because I had no chance in hell and was already in the second row, but it's the thought that counts, right? Anyway, Aly, if you'd like to get coffee sometime, the offer stands.
After Lady Lamb finished up her kick-ass set, I turned around and noticed that the huge gap that was once 10 feet behind me had vanished, along with (somehow) the guy who knew all the words to Lady Lamb songs. I never saw him again. At this point, I was ready for Tallest Man on Earth (Kristian Matsson) to bless us with his Swedish charm, and the audience grew restless as they played song after song while the roadies set up. I might add, if you're going to hire a roadie, don't hire a guy who looks exactly like the guy who's supposed to be performing, because people are going to take pictures of him and think it's him. Okay? They just will. So don't do it.
The lights went down a second time and the crowd grew anxious. And then, as if perfectly on cue, out walked Matsson, dressed in a predictably ultra-short sleeved, low cut t-shirt and dark pants. He was full of energy, piggybacking on the audience's excitement straight into the first track from Dark Bird is Home, "Fields of our Home."
To be honest, going into the show, I wasn't sure how much I was going to like his performance of his new songs, because he had a band behind him, and I preferred his classic solo acoustic to his new, band-backed sound. However, I was quickly proven wrong, because he completely took control of the stage, jumping in all directions and never missing a single strum or lyric. As he closed in on the last minute of the song, I began to realize why the band was there, as they chimed in with incredible harmonies as well as beautiful orchestration. The way I'd describe his band after seeing them live is similar to the band Justin Vernon plays with as Bon Iver. They were subtle, but just noticeable enough to go perfectly with the Bob Dylan-esque twang of Matsson's voice. The slide guitar pairedperfectly with the reserved synth, and the drums were almost too natural sounding to be noticed. I still knew it was his show, it was just as if they were there to help emphasize that.
About halfway through the set, he broke into the fun, upbeat, folk-rooted hit "The Gardner," to which almost everyone in the audience began jumping (it was nearly impossible not to). Predictably enough, the set found its high points not in the new songs, but in the old ones where Matsson could noodle on the guitar as much as he wanted, which was how they were written. My personal favorite came when the band left a lone Matsson on stage for the musically complex, beautiful "Love is All." His voice rang out with the exact same density and suspension as his guitar, and it seemed as though the stars aligned perfectly for him to capture all of our sadness and nostalgia in a single four minutes.
Although for the most part the songs from Dark Bird is Home were the lower points in the show, one of the most impressive moments came when Matsson set down the guitar and walked over to the keyboard for a stunningly impressive solo rendition of "Little Nowhere Towns." His fingers zipped across the keys of the piano just as they had the strings of the guitar, as if to prove to the audience that he wasn't just a one-trick pony. It worked.
As he finished his set with the title track from Dark Bird is Home, I knew damn well that there was going to be an encore, and sure enough, after four minutes of vicious cheering and applause from the audience, he returned to the stage and played what some (I) had been waiting to hear for the entire show-- "The Dreamer." The best part about the performance of this early hit was that he wasn't even the one playing the guitar. Instead, he delegated that part to one of his rhythm guitarists and performed with just the mic, wholly involving himself with the audience, who eagerly screamed every word to the song.
He closed with a bonus track from his sophomore album, Like the Wheel. The slow, discreet guitar part combined with the soft vocals caused several audience members (myself included) to begin swaying side to side as if he were playing "Lean on Me." As he struck the last soft chord, he let it linger, hoping to let a piece of what we had just seen stick in our minds. He earnestly thanked the crowd and then walked off stage, leaving to reach the hearts of yet another audience.
