Concert Review: The Avett Brothers

I’ve never experienced anything quite like an Avett Brother’s concert. It was September 30th and I had caught the Go Train from Aldershot into Union Station earlier that afternoon, making my way by foot to the Horseshoe tavern on Queen Street. Sitting outside the bar, reading up on some 19th century Victorian lit and enjoying a pre-concert fish and chips and a pint of Stella, my foot taps to the imagined beat of the genre-defying, neo-Americana Avett’s music playing over and over in my head. The Avett’s had played their major-label CD release set on Letterman the night before and were kind enough to swing up to Toronto to grace three hundred of their fortunate fans with a humble, sold-out show.

Coming off the Letterman show, the Avett’s are clearly exhausted and ready to head back south at the end of their tour to recuperate. Despite their exhaustion, the band manages to pump out over two hours of songs and they do it with style, topping things off with a double encore at the end of the night. The shaggy bearded Scott Avett hammers on his banjo while he stands and stomps the beat on the roof of his kick drum, hair and spit flying through the air of the stage. The cellist’s bow shreds more with every note as the crowd jumps and Seth screams his heart into his microphone: “Nobody knows what lies behind the days before the day we die...” The very next song, Scott swaps his banjo for Seth’s guitar and proceeds to quiet us with his song “Murder in the City,” a reflective, acoustic sketch of family life, concluding with the heart grabbing line, “Always remember, there was nothing worth sharing like the love that let us share our name.” While Scott sings the ballad, Seth rests with his eyes closed behind the piano preserving his energy for the next bluegrass-rock number. A writer for FFWD weekly summed up this unique ability that the Avett’s have to blend mood and tempo in his review of their new album, I and Love and You: “Here’s how The Avett Brothers play: Hammer away at the banjo and guitar. Stomp the hell out of a kick drum and crescendo into screaming. Then, within minutes, play a disarmingly honest ballad about family, love or loss. Make people cry.”

It is this ability that draws me to the Avett Brother’s music, and to them. It’s been said that the Avett’s don’t represent a specific genre, but rather a lifestyle. It is a lifestyle that emanates with passion and pain, adoration and anger, a lifestyle that is willing to examine the delicate balance between love and heartache. The Avett’s gift their followers with unhurried time, whisking them away to a wooden porch in some Southern state, to a place where it feels life can be lived out honestly, and humanity embraced truthfully. Pick up a copy of any one of their albums, open up your ears to some transforming music, and join in on the lifestyle.