Shakey Graves plays on Wednesday night at Club XL (photo: Skye Leppo)
The crowd at XL Live experienced an unexpected evening on Wednesday night. What a joy it is to live in the same timeline as live music, where anything can happen!
Hailing from Austin, Texas, Alejandro Rose-Garcia, who performs under the stage name Shakey Graves, brought his live band to the Harrisburg venue for a truly wild show unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
After popular central PA singer-songwriter Shine Delphi warmed up the room with a spirited set, Shakey Graves and his fellow musicians took the stage, played a few chords of “Family and Genus,” and admitted to the crowd that they were pretty beat after three weeks of non-stop touring.
To ~ shake ~ things up a little, Graves took off his signature cowboy hat and revealed they were going to choose songs at random. He pointed to the pockets in the mechanic jumpsuit he was wearing and shared that the band’s song titles were in one pocket, and a selection of musical styles and genres were in the other.
He hopped down from the stage into the photo pit, and asked two audience members each to pick one, with the first choice being “Excuses” in a surf rock style.
This creative process almost felt like it mimicked sketch and game shows in the vein of “Whose Line Is It Anyway,” and turned out to be extremely fun for the musicians and audience alike throughout the night. There was a palpable energy in the air that generated a lot of whoops, laughs, clap-alongs and more. The band frequently broke into smiles on stage and joked with the audience between songs.
The band even ventured into a doom core style to cover “Devil May Care” with the stage aglow in a red wash.
I didn’t catch the style selection for “Counting Sheep” and the genre wasn’t obvious to me while the band played it, but it was beautiful, nonetheless, and stood out to me as one of their best songs of the night.
The band did this innovative style for about seven songs before the full band left the stage, leaving Graves alone. He thanked the audience for “going on this adventure with me,” and said he’d never tried anything like this before, but he was “having a blast.”
Shakey Graves on stage (photo: Skye Leppo)
Graves put the cowboy hat (and his Americana persona) back on and performed a decent number of solo songs from various records he’s released over the last decade. “If Not For You” broke into a beautiful picking jam that seamlessly led into a brief cover of The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind” before finding its way back into the ending of “If Not For You.”
Graves made his way into the hit, “Roll the Bones,” closing his set by tipping his hat and holding up his guitar to the crowd. He exited, and the room was alive with thunderous cheers for about three minutes until the full band returned to the stage.
Graves introduced his full band and added that they’ve got a forthcoming album that’ll be available in September and played a track from it, “Evergreen,” which was also on the “Big in the World” EP released earlier this year.
They jammed out for a few minutes before “Playing Along,” which is also on the yet-to-be-released record (which will be titled “Movie of the Week,” for inquiring minds).
The band’s “swan song” was their lively hit “Dearly Departed,” which had the whole crowd roaring and clapping along.
The band exited again, and it seemed like Graves was about to walk off stage as well when he turned around with his guitar and played the gorgeous song, “Tomorrow,” for one final treat before closing the night.
SET LIST
Family and Genus (Intro)
Excuses (style: surf rock)
Kids These Days (style: post punk)
The Perfect Parts (style: reggae)
Devil May Care (style: doom core)
Look Alive (style: college coffee shop)
Ready or Not (style: Western)
Counting Sheep (style: undetermined)
Late July
Unlucky Skin
If Not For You (featuring a brief “Where Is My Mind” cover)
Nobody’s Fool
Roll the Bones
ENCORE
Evergreen
Playing Along
Dearly Departed
Tomorrow
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