|
Dawes Passwords 2018 Tour
Dawes Setlist
Tour Dates
09/14/2018 State Theatre Portland, ME
09/15/2018 Harvest Jazz & Blues Festival 09/16/2018 Festival At The Farm 09/18/2018 College Street Music Hall New Haven, CT 09/19/2018 Count Basie Center Red Bank, NJ 09/20/2018 Koka Booth Amphitheatre Cary, NC 09/22/2018 Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival 09/25/2018 Bourbon TheatreLincoln, NE 09/26/2018 Ogden Theatre Denver, CO 09/28/2018 Cargo Concert Hall Reno, NV 09/30/2018 Revolution Hall Portland, OR 10/01/2018 The Showbox Seattle, WA 10/04/2018 Mystic Theatre Petaluma, CA 10/29/2018 Observatory North Park San Diego, CA 10/30/2018 Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas, NV 10/31/2018 Rialto Theatre Tucson, AZ 11/02/2018 Stubb's Bar-B-Q Austin, TX 11/03/2018 The Bomb Factory Dallas, TX 11/06/2018 Jones Assembly Oklahoma City, OK 11/11/2018 The Signal Chattanooga, TN 11/13/2018 The National Richmond, VA 11/14/2018 The Underground Charlotte, NC Read More
|
The future is now--
After a summer touring with rock veterans E.L.O., Dawes have returned to the road for their own two-set “Evening With” headlining tour, playing a crowded Palace Theatre in downtown St. Paul in support of latest full-length, Passwords (HUB Records).
Their sixth studio album has a few more keyboard textures, synth bleeps, and tones, but is still the classic Laurel Canyon easy-going sound (again produced by Jonathan Wilson, an architect of that musical movement) with novel, sentimental turns of lyrical phrases, that has made the band’s sound so accessible, and ever-growing in popularity. Minneapolis/St. Paul, in particular is a very strong market for the band, with local station The Current being one of the first in the country to embrace them with regular airplay, beginning early in 2009.
Dawes’ first set clocked in at just over an hour, starting strong with the single and opening track from the new album, ‘Living in the Future’, complete with the strange retro piece of machinery from the album’s cover, on stage along with the five members (Taylor Goldsmith, guitar / vocals; his brother Griffin on drums; Wylie Gelber, bass; and Lee Pardini on keys, along with touring guitarist Trevor Menear).
Following with sing-a-long ‘If I Wanted Someone’, the band, set in front of relatively simple backdrop, cemented their widening reputation as tight and disciplined live unit, as evidenced not just from their own shows, but playing with the likes of Bright Eyes and Jackson Browne, and opening for numerous legends.
“We’ve been looking forward to this for so long” the elder Goldsmith remarked before ‘Right on Time’ happy to be in a metro that’s embraced them as one of their own for the last decade, “this is going to be a great way to kick off this tour(leg)- right time, right city”.
The new ‘Feed the Fire’ started with a dizzying synth hook and a bevy of Griffin Goldsmith drum beats before settling in with swathing guitar hook, and singer Taylor Goldsmith explained how ‘Never Gonna Say Goodbye’ was written for his fiance after singer/actress Mandy Moore injured herself (similar worked for Chris Martin of Coldplay on ‘Fix You’ to Gwyneth Paltrow, and Bono to his wife on ‘Sweetest Thing’).
The song itself references the 80’s film ‘Say Anything’ with John Cusack, though Goldsmith admitted after, that he’d actually never seen the film, though that didn’t stop one creative crowd member up front from raising a cardboard cut-out of a boombox, on high during the song.
Menear and Goldsmith traded riffs during an impressive extended instrumental passage of ‘From a Right Angle’ and the crowd held their glasses on high, singing along with the chorus of 2015’s ‘Things Happen’.
Harmonies between the two Goldsmith brothers were nicely on display for the first set’s closing ‘Most People’, with singer Goldsmith expressing his continued adoration for the local audience (“It’s never lost on us”) on this, their first time playing a venue of this size on the St. Paul side of the river (their two 2012 nights at the MN State Fair being in Falcon Heights, MN).
After a short break, the crowd re-assembled with the band launching into the self-realization of the new ‘Time Flies Either Way’ with Goldsmith lyrics noting “Every punchline takes on another dimension, when you realize that the time flies either way”. The band then reached back a decade for a tender and bittersweet ‘Love is All I Am’ from their first album, and the new ‘Telescope’ is also self-reflecting, while telling a vivid story that realizes a true perspective of the world as it is.
|
the crowd cheered, hummed, and nodded along in complete agreement
|
The night’s second set would come to an end with the band’s song of goodwill, ‘All Your Favorite Bands’ with Goldsmith singing the lines to the crowd, like one old friend talking to another, “I hope the world sees the same person that you always were to me, and may all your favorite bands stay together”.
Not satiated with over two hours of music, the crowd applauded and hooted enough to coax the quintet out for one last song as an encore, going back to 2009’s ‘That Western Skyline’ which served as an exhaling, slow burst of comfort as Goldsmith ached in song, about leaving his native Los Angeles to travel to Birmingham, in order to woo back a lost love.
Any future looks currently like a mixed bag, with dividing politics and social issues clouding the news on a daily basis, but with an always-present sliver of hope of reconciliation, spirit of togetherness, and unity.
Dawes takes on those issues in song, the good and the bad and the unresolved, and manages to set them to music that makes us tap our toes, sing along, and reflect on our own lives. Their music, though still evolving, has a timeless sound, geared for a long run and in the end, their own password to unlocking all of this current chaos, can only be love.
(click on any photo below to enlarge and see full image)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
