Are we in a golden age for acoustic music? You’d nearly should suppose so, if you’re aware of a few vital excursions coming by California proper now, one by the duo of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, one other by solo artist Jason Isbell, buying and selling coastal cities like capos at a guitar pull. Isbell has been within the evaluation headlines, shining a light-weight on simply how good lonesome finger-picking can sound on report along with his first band-less album, “Foxes within the Snow.” However the Los Angeles re-arrival of Welch and Rawlings — who’re greater than six months into touring behind their wonderful 2024 joint effort, “Woodland” — is a reminder not simply of what an affect they’ve absolutely been on somebody like Isbell, however how they continue to be the unshakable queen and king of this idiom.
After all, whereas Isbell and a few of their different contemporaries may dip their toes out and in of a purely acoustic mode, Welch and Rawlings have been holding it quiet for near 30 years now. Each every so often, they threaten to go electrical, in their very own still-modest trend, however fortunately, it by no means fairly appears to fully take. As a result of the thriller within the timeless tales they inform usually does work finest on a decrease boil, at the same time as nothing electrifies fairly like Rawlings’ 1935 Epiphone, when he actually lets his fingers do the amplifying.
Their sold-out look Friday night time on the Wiltern was an train in simply how sustained a grip two very unassuming individuals can have on a captivated viewers for the higher a part of two-and-a-half hours, with not way more arsenal at their disposal than expertise, a definite sense of shared private identification and an ideal knack for classic gear finds. (And on among the songs, for an actual turbo increase, a visitor bassist.) Even generously portioned into two units with an intermission, their 23-song present virtually appeared over too quick, however that’s a testomony usually to their clock-stopping spell. It virtually appeared applicable that they had been acting on the identical weekend as America’s swap to Daylight Saving Time, so the viewers had a number of possibilities to surprise the place the time went.
For as a few years as these two have been at this now, this tour marks the primary time that the formatting of the brand new album matches the formatting of their stay present. Up to now, concert events would discover Rawlings and Welch alternating songs from the respective albums that got here out beneath their particular person names (every of which they’d each labored on anyway). Final yr’s “Woodland” discovered them co-billed on report for the primary time, too, buying and selling turns at doing lead vocals (with an occasional true duet or pure concord quantity) simply as they at all times have stay. It’s a welcome synchronization of studio and stage modes, with no drawbacks for the viewers; though “Gillian Welch” has been extra of a family identify within the ‘90s and 2000s, it’s secure to say that anybody who’s a fan of 1 is a fan of each at this late date.
The dynamics of getting a “band” with two efficient lead singers retains issues from ever remotely changing into stale, even with a virtually comical lack of bells and whistles, musically or visually. (“Dave may take his jacket off,” Welch warned. “That’s about it, for present enterprise.”) And when their voices mix collectively at size, as they did throughout the time-tested slow-burner “The Means It Will Be,” the impact is eerie, for lack of a greater phrase — not fairly blood concord, however one thing equally fairly, and fairly spooky.
At the moment they’ve a 3rd wheel on stage for a majority of the tunes: upright bassist Paul Kowert, who’s additionally a long-standing member of Punch Brothers and Hawktail. His presence alone lends a type of selection to the fabric, since there are numbers like “Bells of Harlem” the place he begins by enjoying the bass with a bow and switches to plucking it to choose up the tempo, or vice versa, or goes from not enjoying in any respect to making a percussive crescendo within the second half of a track. When there’s not that a lot else occurring on stage, these little switch-ups create extra rigidity or motion inside a track than you’d initially suppose attainable.
Welch switches successfully between guitar and banjo. The whoops she acquired for selecting up the latter led her to comment, “Some individuals discover the banjo unaccountably attractive.” Rawlings was about to choose up his personal banjo at one level when there was a loud snap, adopted by the shocked remark, “All people is aware of that sound” — and after a little bit of prevaricating, as a result of there was no roadie about to experience out to the rescue with a brand new one, a swap again to guitar and a change of setlist. “We had been gonna play a cheerful quantity,” Welch knowledgeable the group, “however as an alternative we’re gonna play a actual unhappy one.” Which, at a Welch/Rawlings present, is like immediately asserting you’re going to serve dessert. That’s when the group acquired “The Means It Will Be” as an audible, and thanked God for damaged strings.
As a guitarist, Rawlings isn’t just a grasp technician however a Monster of People, soloing round his companion’s rhythm guitar or lead vocals like somebody caught up in a candy delirium, although he is aware of when to dole out the madness. Should you respect people, you most likely have already got these individuals as heroes, however for those who’re extra of a rock particular person, there are intuitive strikes right here that make the music really feel prefer it virtually belongs as a lot in that idiom, too. Rawlings was at peak flex when he moved from virtuosic dexterity to simply slamming laborious on the strings throughout the seven-minute penultimate quantity, “Revelator,” which may normally be counted on as a climax after they play it. (They don’t at all times.) He’s doing that stuff on his trademark Epiphone, and perhaps for a second you’ll want that whoever fastidiously manufactured that instrument again in 1935 may very well be introduced again from the useless, simply so you may see the seems on their faces as they witnessed the wild issues Rawlings does with it.
Different highlights included two Rawlings-sung songs that the duo haven’t even launched on a report, however are bringing out sometimes on tour anyway, as is their wont. One among these, “Lazarus,” appears to be from the standpoint of a buddy or lover of the biblical resurrectee, questioning whether or not being purchased again from the useless was too painful an expertise to be value it. I used to be questioning throughout the efficiency if this was a canopy of a Grateful Lifeless track I hadn’t heard; I used to be glad to see fan feedback afterward indicating I used to be not alone in that loopy notion. One other new track confirmed up within the encores, “Goodnight,” such a candy send-off that you may think about the pair ultimately adopting it right into a farewell quantity each night time.
Sooner or later, somebody who’s a newcomer to all this may surprise: Is that this all a interval piece? That may be a tough query to reply, which is a part of what has made the entire Welch/Rawlings ethos so beguiling. The old-timey-ness of lots of the melodies or lyrics appears to forged the songs in a nostalgic mild… for those who’re nostalgic for the nice previous days of the Melancholy. However then Welch will sing one thing like “Hashtag,” a tribute to their late songwriter buddy Man Clark that clearly, from its title, isn’t making an attempt to tug any time-travel tips. (“When will we change into ourselves?” they surprise, within the refrain, lifting the track from an anecdotal homage to a well-known, fallen buddy to some type of better cosmic question.) These songs are actually principally unmoored from time in an exquisite manner, aided by the truth that Welch’s voice specifically appears neither fashionable nor antiquated. There’s heat to her vocals, and in addition room for ambiguity, like she is perhaps skirting the road between pleasant assurances and telling you a ghost story.
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She brings a way of hope to even among the sadder tales, anyway — like “Onerous Occasions,” which isn’t the Stephen Foster track of the identical identify, although it sounds about as previous, however one in every of their very own. “Onerous occasions ain’t gona rule my thoughts, Bessie,” she sang, and within the laborious occasions we’re presently experiencing, it was laborious to not track alongside, aspirationally. Even when, by the top of the tune, the plowman who sings it has misplaced his farm and Bessie’s most likely buried on it someplace.
The Wiltern viewers was in for one final deal with earlier than it was throughout. Rawlings began enjoying some round guitar elements that sounded suspiciously just like the opening to Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” however no, it most likely wasn’t… after which Welch lastly broke into Grace Slick’s opening line, whereas he broke right into a slight smile. The 2 companions actually don’t try this many covers, and so they’d solely busted this one out a few dozen occasions within the final 20 years. However one thing about L.A. acquired them in a surrealistic temper, and we acquired a model that sounded about as cool because the Airplane’s. You possibly can say that everybody exiting the constructing had been remodeled right into a Fed-head.
Setlist for Gillian Welch & David Rawllings, the Wiltern in Los Angeles, March 7, 2025:
(set 1)
Elvis Presley Blues
Midnight Practice
Empty Trainload of Sky
Cumberland Hole
North Nation
Howdy Howdy
Bells of Harlem
The Means It Goes
Ruby
Wayside/Again in Time
(set 2)
Lawman
What We Had
Onerous Occasions
Hashtag
The Day the Mississippi Died
The Means It Will Be
Lazarus
Purple Clay Halo
(encore 1)
Have a look at Miss Ohio
I’ll Fly Away
(encore 2)
Goodnight
Revelator
White Rabbit
