It is early in the year, but one of the best double-billings you’ll come across in 2019 is on tour and is not to be missed. T. Hardy Morris and Daniel Romano, both of New West Records and both of whom released excellent records in 2018, have paired up for a series of shows together, which just this week made a stop in Brooklyn at the Knitting Factory on January 24th. It was a hell of a performance from both acts, the kind of rock and roll that leaves reverberations in your brain for days after.
Hardy and his band opened the show, playing quite a few of the mellower standouts off last year’s Dude, The Obscure, including “Purple House Blues” and “The Night Everything Changed.” For fans used to seeing Morris rock out, there seemed to be less of that in this set, but it wasn’t completely missing. When it came time to take a break from the moody, swooning pedal steel guitar numbers, the band let loose on “When The Record Skips,” “Disaster Proof” and “My Me,” and the audience was rewarded with these wild, uncaged moments. Still, Morris has mastered the chill sound he explored on Dude, The Obscure, and those quieter moments were hypnotically beautiful. The highlight came during the finale when he hit a sweet spot between both of these worlds performing “Be,” the album’s opening track. It’s a song with a memorable, epic melody that builds to an explosive end, and the band was up to the challenge, leaving it all on the stage.
Though Daniel Romano and his band offer a completely different sound from Morris, they somehow fit together perfectly. Where Morris gave us heady, futuristic stoner jams, Romano and his three bandmates stepped out in vintage suits and delivered a retro, capital-R rock and roll set. Romano is an artist who continues to reinvent himself with each album he makes, even changing his look. He’s been the old-timey country crooner and the greased-up rockabilly punk, to name a few. With his 2018 release Finally Free, he’s transformed into a kind of earthy, medieval minstrel. Rather than stick to songs off Finally Free for this tour, Romano brought a set that spanned records like 2011’s Sleep Beneath the Willow, 2015’s If I’ve Only One Time Askin’, 2016’s Mosey, and 2017’s Modern Pressure.
The prolific songwriter unleashed a fiery set, even setting some of Finally Free’s more mellow tunes, like album opener “Empty Husk” and the slinky “The Long Mirror of Time,” to more headbang-friendly arrangements. They held up well with the amps turned up loud. He and his stellar band also grooved to songs like the perfect post-breakup tune “I’m Alone Now,” “What’s To Become of the Meaning of Love,” “Toulouse,” “Time Forgot (To Change My Heart)” and “Dead Medium.” It was a well-rounded refresher of Romano’s vast and varied catalogue, and a performance that left us sweaty and euphoric.
