Live Review: Kevin Devine, Owen & Andy Hull at Southpaw [10.20.07]

After a full week of the CMJ Music Marathon, it would seem that an early show featuring three solo acoustic acts would be a lackluster finale to an otherwise eventful festival. Generally, this combination would lead to an utterly dull and boring evening. Luckily, the three artists performing tonight are compelling enough to hold the audience’s interest and different enough to break up the monotony. The night begins at 7:30 pm with Andy Hull, who is only slightly better known as the singer/guitarist for Manchester Orchestra.

Hull is an unlikely frontman and an even unlikelier solo performer. He is slightly pudgy, heavily bearded and already drenched in his own sweat after the first five minutes of his set. Despite his atypical appearance, Hull is able to lull the entire room into complete silence in reverence of his minimalist compositions. Hull has a high-pitched, somewhat nasal voice that he modulates between a withdrawn whisper and a violent yelp.

Each song conveys devastating pain through minute everyday observations that he draws out into dense metaphors. Sometimes, his lyrics overpower his sparse guitar strumming to the point where he stops playing altogether. Hull performs several of his own songs interspersed with a few Manchester Orchestra songs thrown in for good measure. He closes his set strongly with a two-minute song that he describes as, “a story about my fictional girlfriend that cheated on me with a fictional douche bag,” which would have been heartbreaking if not for the prior explanation.

Hull is followed by Mike Kinsella, who records under the moniker Owen. Kinsella is better known as the drummer for Chicago emo pioneers Cap’n Jazz and the singer/guitarist of the short-lived yet hugely influential American Football. When a drunken fan obnoxiously screams out the name of the latter band seconds after the curtains open, Kinsella reservedly responds, “These are quiet songs, so you should probably shut the fuck up.” Kinsella stands in stark contrast to Hull, seated rather than standing, looking considerably more comfortable in his environment. He is far more involved with his guitar work, intricately finger picking the strings as though it were a harp.

The tone of Kinsella’s voice is just as delicate as his instrumentation, yet the subject matter of his songs are anything but. This style of music is usually reserved for sad, introspective songs, where the artist lyrically disembowels himself. However, Kinsella turns the focus of his songs outward, tearing down his subjects with bitter, caustic declarations, i.e. “Whatever it is you think you are, you aren’t.” He often pauses to retune or fast-forward through certain stretches of songs, but the audience is not bothered by these interruptions.

Kinsella has a dominant control over his performance, willing to indulge in anything he sees fit. He performs a seemingly improvised one-minute song about listening to the Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” in the car with his brother on the way home from their father’s funeral. He also entertains the idea of playing a Fugazi cover, even though he doesn’t know any Fugazi lyrics. At the end of his set, he tunes his guitar down to D and offers to play the guitar part if someone else will sing. With no takers in the audience, he says, “Yeah, I wouldn’t either. Thanks. Goodnight.”

The final act of the night is Kevin Devine, who lives right down the block from the Southpaw. This is a homecoming show for Devine, who led his entire family into the upper level of the club during Hull’s opening set. He begins alone, playing the first song from his latest record, Put Your Ghost to Rest, appropriately titled “Brooklyn Boy.” After this, he is joined by his Goddamn Band, making for a much fuller sound than the expected one man show. With an extra two guitars, bass, drums and keyboards, Devine plows through shiny, poppy tunes, with more “ba-ba-ba’s” and “do-do-do’s” than a Ben Gibbard campfire sing-along.

Though Owen and Andy Hull were able to hold the audience’s attention with their contracted individual performances, Devine and the Goddamn Band give the necessary energy boost that the show needed to keep going. Rather than a showcase for a performance, this feels much more like a birthday celebration for Devine. The audience is comprised entirely of his fans, friends, family or combinations of the three. This makes it difficult not to get enveloped in the excitement that the band creates.

This early show not only escaped the tiresome stereotype of a three-man acoustic performance, but culminated into an entirely appropriate conclusion to CMJ week.

[Photos from band MySpace page.]