On a frigid night in snow-blanketed Allston Village Damien Jurado confidently held court at Brighton Music Hall, quietly taking charge and transmuting the brick walled room into the haze of a warm, intimate folk club.
Drawing from an extensive song catalog, Mr. Jurado delivered a lengthy set packed with crowd pleasers, peppered with semi obscure chestnuts, and heavy (but never too reliant) on 2014’s psychedelic breakthrough Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son. In a departure from the style of that album, the only instruments onstage were a plugged-in acoustic guitar (affected with a tasteful amount of reverb) and the singer’s own dynamic set of pipes. In this manner, the arrangements of even the most extensively layered and thoroughly dubbed tunes were pared down to their most basic and essential structure. Fortunately for the patrons of the packed Music Hall, each song had a strong and gorgeous skeleton that stood upright on its own.
The first portion of Jurado’s set focused on the quieter, melancholy laden songs in the vein of his early breakthrough Rehearsals for Departure. With the room’s heating system broken, only the shuffling of winter coats accompanied the beautiful guitar and vocals flowing from the stage.
Several songs into the evening, the strumming of unusual, Eastern-tinged chords introduced the more experimentally natured songs of the singer’s most recent album. In presenting the music of Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son, Jurado at once struck to the heart of these songs and streamlines them. Dub-heavy, extensive instrumental breaks were tightened to a few careful measures of strummed guitar before seguing back into vocals of colorful, often mysterious lyricism. Again however, in streamlining these songs, they are granted a certain immediacy that sacrifices the delectable and lengthy instrumental indulgence of the album cuts; in short, Jurado delivered punchy, effective versions of the Brothers and Sisters tunes, but ran through them at a brisk pace.
At one point, beginning a folk tune from earlier in his repertoire, the songwriter remarked “More than music, I love sound,” and asked the audience to provide a subdued percussion by rub their hands together. Assuring them that they could stop whenever they wanted, but that he would love to have the effect last through the first half of his song, Jurado led the audience through a sound effect which equated that of a perpetual rainmaker and perfectly suited the open, airy chords of his song.
The reverent audience was treated to some moments of introspective, witty banter with the veteran songsmith.
In between songs, he mentioned that his current tour represented a strange smattering of venues: he was embarking on an extensive series of dates with alt-country heavyweight Jason Isbell at big, beautiful theatres – yet in just a few weeks he would be experimenting with a short run of intimate “living room” shows, playing limited, private engagements literally in peoples’ homes.
The audience was treated to another candid moment when Mr. Jurado stumbled with an early verse of his well-known and well-loved set closer, “Ohio.” Rather than fumble awkwardly, he shrugged it off and chalked the error up to being “easily distracted!” He then took advantage of the moment to express his gratitude for his partner and girlfriend, who was embarking on this extensive journey with him. Then, thanking the audience, he gracefully restarted the tune, taking a bow at its conclusion. Led back to the stage by the crowd’s ovation, Jurado sang another handful of tunes, the most striking of which was his reworking of a traditional murder ballad, “Abileen,” before exiting the stage with the gentle touch of “Matinee.”
In between a tour of sold-out theatres and candle-lit living rooms, this cold night in Boston seemed to represent a comfortable middle-ground, as Damien Jurado drew a significant crowd of music lovers to hear his sweet song-spells unwind at his leisure and to their wonderment.
