Durand Jones and the Indications at 7th Street
Durand Jones And The Indications Setlist
Broods Dates
APR 17 Music Hall of Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY
APR 19 First Unitarian Church Philadelphia, PA APR 21 Brighton Music Hall Boston, MA APR 22 Ottobar Baltimore, MD APR 24 Woodward Theater Cincinnati, OH APR 25 Headliners Music Hall Louisville, KY APR 26 The Basement East Nashville, TN APR 28 Terminal West Atlanta, GA MAY 3 Orpheum Theater New Orleans, LA MAY 11 Granfalloon Bloomington, IN JUN 13 Villa Hispana Albuquerque, NM JUN 14 Pepsi Amphitheater Flagstaff, AZ JUN 15 North Island Credit Chula Vista, CA JUN 16 Santa Barbara Bowl Santa Barbara, CA JUN 17 The Regent Theater Los Angles, CA JUN 19 Rotary Amphitheater Fresno, CA JUN 20 Avila Beach Golf Resort Avila Beach, CA JUN 21 Papa Murphy's Park Sacramento, CA JUN 22 The Greek Theatre Berkeley, CA JUN 23 Les Schwab Amphitheater Bend, OR JUN 27 Idaho Botanical Garden Boise, ID JUN 28 The Cuthbert Amphitheater Eugene, OR JUN 29 Marymoor Amphitheater Redmond, WA JUN 30 KettleHouse Brewing Co. Missoula, MT AUG 2 OFF Festival Katowice, Poland AUG 4 Wilderness Festival Oxfordshire, United Kingdom AUG 5 Brudenell Social Club Leeds, United Kingdom AUG 6 King Tut's Wah Wah Hut Glasgow, United Kingdom AUG 10 Way Out West Festival Slottsskogen, Sweden AUG 13 The Grand Social Dublin, Ireland Read More
|
A love call answered--
Neo-soul rising band Durand Jones and the Indications returned to sell out the 7th Street Entry in downtown Minneapolis, an “indication” that they’re destined for bigger things and larger rooms, their next time through.
Huntington Beach, CA-based Cameron Lew is the songwriter behind Ginger Root, who play live as a trio (adding Matt Carney on drums and Dylan Hovis on bass) doing music self-described as “aggressive elevator soul” which is a meaty, though not incorrect description. Mahjong Room (Acrophase Records) is their latest full-length.
The music is signature West Coast bedroom pop, similar in composing settings to Jay Som or Toro y Moi, keyboard-based and peppered with classic 60’s soul flourishes. On stage, the trio look like a small IT department, but Lew’s voice can rise to the “get down” levels and his honest, deadpan humor between songs, helped keep the attention of the crowd.
Song inspirations came from such disparate subjects as the Seinfeld TV show and Chef Emeril Lagasse, most run just three minutes or so, and have simple titles like ‘Havin’ Fun’ and ‘Ohio’. After seventeen shows as the opener, it was their last with the headliner, so Lew decided to cover ‘What Christmas Means to Me’ (made famous in 1967 by Stevie Wonder), … well, just because…, before closing things with the cool vibes of ‘Call it Home’.
At almost a year to the day when we last saw them sell out the room, Durand Jones and the Indications returned (surprisingly to the same 250-capacity 7th Street Entry) to once again sell out their show, but even quicker than last time.
The five-piece has a new album, American Love Call (Dead Oceans/Colemine Records) that maintains its ‘70s-esque soul sound, but like Marvin Gaye’s What ‘s Going On, lyrically turns both more inward and also outward, in examining the world around us. Jones and band (Aaron Frazer-drums; Blake Rhein- guitar; Kyle Houpt-bass; Steve Okonoski-organ) didn’t bring the horn section we saw them with last time, but the Indiana band and singer were tight enough, that the extra brass wasn’t needed.
Their musical social awareness was evident from the start, with ‘Make a Change’ opening their eighty-minute headlining set and in the short time since we last caught them, their musical vision seems more focused, the four-part harmonies more perfected, and the songs much more than just a simple reverse-engineering of ‘60s Stax/’70s Atlantic soul tunes.
Drummer Frazer’s Smokey-esque falsetto is still like a cool breeze through your hair on songs like ‘Don’t You Know’ and ‘Court of Love’, but he seemed to take lead less than previous and the doo-wop vocals aren’t as much a part of the more recent songs. Jones masters the soul crooning even more than before and his love pleading on ‘Walk Away’ can be felt with an ache.
Jones changed the opening line setting of ‘Morning in America’ to “It’s still in Minneapolis,” to get the audience ears to prick up about the song’s other lyrics describing the opioid crisis, race, jail and public school troubles, and as result, admitted in song he “can’t see the dawn”, then picked up a sax as Frazer sung ‘How Can I Be Sure’, as a Lauryn Hill verse worked as a seamless bridge in ‘Now I’m Gone’.
Jones channeled his inner Otis Redding for a snappy ‘Groovy Babe’, with a vocal vs. drumbeat battle to break up the song, and bringing louder crowd cheers. There is an enduring familiarity to ‘Long Way Home’ even though the song is new and ‘True Love’ sounds equally timeless, a song one could easily imagine Jackie Wilson singing.
After a smooth Curtis Mayfield cover, the band would end the main set with the song they opened with previously, the upbeat ‘Smile’ that belies the true inner pain as Jones sings “try to just get by for a while, to hide my pride paint-on smile”.
Frazer would begin the two-song encore singing the low-key ‘Is It Any Wonder’, his lilting falsetto drifting effortlessly over the crowd like a calm wave, and then the evening would end with a soulful but authentic Beatles cover.
With second full-length American Love Call, there is no “sophomore slump” for Durand Jones and the Indications; in fact, the reverse is true. With a solid and evolved self-described “road album” in tow and compelling live show, the band’s extensive touring to even greater-size audiences, will make them a secret no more.
(click on any photo below to enlarge and see full image)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Durand Jones and the Indications at 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (09 April 2019) |
Recent Comments