Why I Can't Wait Until They Come Back to Ohio

We finally got to see the Avett Brothers.  Live, in concert.  And it was amazing.  Easily one of the best shows I have ever seen.  I simply cannot wait until they are back in Ohio so I can see them again, especially with Bob Crawford back on the stage, who was absent from the show; I’m assuming he was tending to his ailing daughter.  We send good thoughts to the Crawford family.

The show was at Fraze Pavilion in Kettering.  Neither one of us had been there before (I was accompanied by my best friend, as I’m sure you can assume), but we both want to go back, which the usher guaranteed us would happen.  It was an incredible venue.  Immaculate.  Very big and open, but still quaint and cozy and familiar.  Very few bad seats in the house.  We had pretty great seats—7^th row just right of center.  The seats just got in the way though because no one sat—save for the “older” couple behind us—for the entire duration of the show.  It was an “Evening With the Avett Brothers”, so no opening act—just a solid two hours of glorious, high-energy “punk-grass”.

After the show we had a lot of people who had been to multiple Avett Brothers shows telling us that it was a terrible show and one of the worst they had been to.  One girl even went as far as saying “sorry” it was our first “Avetts experience”.  I’m not sorry.  I’m sorry they had an awful time watching their favourite band.  I’m sorry all they could focus on was that they played “weird” songs and that Bob Crawford wasn’t on stage and was replaced with some other guy with no stage presence (they didn’t seem to care that Bob’s daughter is sick and that he does occasionally miss shows to be with her).  The only time I had heard such complaints before was after seeing Bob Dylan at the Nutter Center in Dayton (we later found out it was his 2000^th show of his never-ending tour—super awesome), though those people (myself included) appreciated the fact that they were seeing a superstar, no matter how shot his voice is and respected that he never repeats a set list and therefore does end up playing some less-popular songs.  The vast majority of the comments about the show left us both rather frustrated, angered that these “fans” would try to ruin such an amazing experience for us.  Shame on them.  Seriously—don’t go to a show if you’re going to complain about it.  Don’t talk to other people if you’re just going to try to ruin the show for them.  That is not how a true fan acts.  Be glad you got to see your favourite band.  I for one had no complaints other than that they didn’t sing three of my favourite songs: “Colorshow” (duh), “Distraction #74” (can’t really do this one without Bob), and “Murder in the City” (this was on the set list, but was axed for some reason), which holds certain sentimental value for my best friend and me.  There were quite a few songs we didn’t know, but they played all of the classics as well.  I think we both got goosebumps when they started playing “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise”, especially after the huge cheers for the lines of “And your life doesn’t change by the man that’s elected/If you’re loved by someone, you’re never rejected/Decide what to be and go be it.”  The whole evening was just so surreal—couldn’t believe I was finally seeing them after watching so many live videos on YouTube and the Live Vol. 3 DVD.  You can feel the energy in the videos and it is even more amazing when you’re actually there.  Never before have such a stage presence.  I’ve seen some pretty high-energy acts, such as Foxy Shazam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but that’s pretty hard and loud music… this is acoustic.  No one out there can rock a cello quite like Joe Kwon, not even Gretta Cohn, the former cellist for Omaha indie rock band, Cursive (they were actually my first ever concert—awesome show).  And never before have I seen someone smile and laugh on stage quite as much as Seth Avett, which is awesome because he has the kind of smile that can make the saddest of hermits smile with joy.  Seth and I made eye contact at one point, and I don’t really want to admit this, but it was kind of a magical moment.  That said, Trenton had the same experience with Scott.  Neither brother did too much screaming, but Scott and Seth both were so intense in their singing and hit some ridiculous notes, which I know I could never hit, not without extracting certain body parts anyway.

One thing that I loved about this show was the eclectic crowd.  I know it was going to be a diverse crow, just like both times I saw Dylan, but I wasn’t expecting the huge amount of kids, some as young as 3 or 4 years old.  The crowd seemed to range from about 3 to 63.  These kids weren’t just there because their parents wanted to go either as many of them were wearing Avett Brothers t-shirts, which means they had probably been to at least one show before.  Seeing all those kids gave me faith in humanity—there are real kids out there who like real good music and not that auto-tuned Top 100 pop music.  There was a kid behind us who was about 15, maybe 16, and was there by himself, which we thought was pretty cool.  We probably would have talked to him, given him some friendly banter over his White Sox t-shirt, but he didn’t come to his seat until shortly before the show and bolted right after.  There was this little kid though, maybe 4 or 5 year old, who was super awesome.  He was a die-hard fan, you could tell.  He so badly wanted to meet the band and get their autographs on his Crackerfarm-designed poster (I wanted to buy one, but was running out of cash).  We waited an hour and a half after the show to try to meet the guys, which I guess they love to do and will make sure they talk to everyone who waits, but eventually gave up after hearing they were somehow already on the bus and asleep (they were playing at Bonnaroo the next afternoon, so I understand).  That little boy was still there with his mom when we left at 12:15.  I know he got the drummer’s autograph and guest guitarist David Mayfield’s.  I would like to think he got Scott’s, Seth’s, and Joe’s as well.  I’d like to think that little boy got to jam with the band.

We were a little frustrated that we didn’t get to meet the Avett Brothers, mostly just because we waited so long.  We understood though that they had to get to Tennessee.  It was frustrating though, listening to the non-fans who were dissing the show tell us about how they had met the band so many times before and that Scott and Seth will stay out until 1am making sure they talk to everyone who has waited; it actually reminded me a lot of when I met Kate Nash.  It was aggravating knowing that these unappreciative fans who just spent the last ten minutes complaining about the show got to meet them, but not us who had just seen them for the first time and absolutely adore their music and everything about them.  We did get some fun people watching though and met a couple cute girls, who we couldn’t decide if they were of age or not (I thought so, despite the pink U21 wrist band, though he thought closer to his young age).  While perusing the sidewalk we also met a young man named Sam Salazar (his real name, seriously) who was waiting to give his band’s latest EP to the Avetts.  He said he does it every time, which we thought was pretty cool and hoped that the Avetts actually listened to the discs and liked them.  His band is called Wheels and they’re actually very good.  I looked them up the next day and you should too, just click here.

I think we’re both already looking forward to seeing the Avett Brothers again.  Dylan is the only artist I’ve seen more than once so far, not counting local bands and I want to see him again (I’m also not counting Foxy Shazam here either though I’ve seen them 2 or 3 times because they were still a local band when I saw them, having not yet been featured in Super Bowl promos and silly cable awards shows).  The Avetts said they love coming to Ohio, which shows seeing as how they were in three different Ohio cities this spring, as well as several other nearby out-of-state cities (such as Detroit), so I know it won’t be difficult to see them again.  And next time, we will meet them and we’ll be sure to leave an impression.  Hopefully one day we can jam, I just have to remember to bring my harmonica.