Last Thursday night Rayland Baxter sold-out The Bluebird Theater. While the crowd wasn’t exactly the most attentive, I’ll chalk it up to the kids getting amped for the weekend. The 20-something guys and their girlfriends downed the double Jack & Gingers and chatted loudly as their weeks slowly moved toward the rear-view mirror.
The evening started with a mellow 45 minute set from Odessa Jorgensen that honestly didn’t do that much for me. Sure, her voice is beautiful, and her guitar playing passable, but I would have been happy with 15-20 minutes instead of a full 45 and, judging by the steadily growing buzz in the theater, many others agreed with me.
At about 9:30 Rayland Baxter took the stage with his band. It had been almost 4 years since I’d seen Baxter open for Jason Isbell just down the road at the Ogden (https://www.listenupdenver.com/40538/jason-isbell-december-10th-ogden-theatre/) , and I’d been looking forward to another set from him since.
The show opened with “Strange American Dream” from his most recent album Wide Awake and the stage was set for a memorable performance. As he moved in “Mr. Rodriguez” from the album that made me fall in love with him – Imaginary Man –I was humming along with abandon!
From there the show proved very heavy on material from Wide Awake and, while I get that he’s touring the album – and obviously doing very well with it given the packed room – I found myself longing for some more of the
Imaginary Man material. That said, he delivered great takes on “Casanova” and “Angeline” before dropping a version of “Freakin’ Me Out” that satisfied me for a little bit.
Baxter showed off a little bit of his playful side when he vamped a bit on The Dead’s “Fire On The Mountain” to the delight of the Denver crowd before he offered up a two song solo set that featured the Feather’s and Fishhooks gem “Olivia.” Though the band was great, both my wife and I agreed that it was nice to see Baxter up there on his own breaking the songs down to their roots.
The set wrapped with the full band on “Hey Larocco” and “Amelia Baker” – two gloriously psychedelic folk tunes – the latter of which seemed to stretch on for 10 minutes. It was a great way to end a slightly up and down show and though the encore featured a sit-in from The Lumineers’ Wesley Schultz, “Amelia Baker” is what I was humming when I fell asleep.
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