Kurt Vile & the Violators and Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band played a show to warm the cockles of the most jaded guitar freak at Seattle’s beautiful 5th Avenue Theatre Friday night. While the music ran the gamut from slacker noise rock to surrealist honky tonk, blazing guitars and harmonious feedback were the twin unifying themes of the evening. It was a night to tempt the shyest of air guitarists to strap on their game face and strike their most valiant pose.
Philadelphia’s Vile first came on my radar 20ish years ago as lead guitarist of the War On Drugs. A founding member of that band (along with Adam Granduciel), Vile struck out on his own in 2008 with his first solo effort, ‘Constant Hitmaker’. 18 years and 12 albums later (not counting his outstanding collaboration with Courtney Barnett, ‘Lotta Sea Lice’), the ever laconic master of tuneful guitar mayhem released ‘Philadelphia’s been good to me’ a couple months ago. The collection is a high point in a remarkably consistent catalog of releases and holds up well to repeated listenings (as I can happily attest). The guitarist and bandleader drew heavily from the new album during his set Friday and I found the tunes to be even more effective and compelling in a live setting.
Friday’s set dove straight into the new album with the wistful instrumental ‘Red Room Dub’ before dropping into one of my favorite cuts, ‘Zoom 97’. Vile took a brief detour to 2022’s ‘(watch my moves)’ for the joyful ‘Hey Like a Child’ before coming right back to his most recent effort for the lovely ‘Rock o’ Stone’. Vile conveys a slightly goofy yet utterly amiable presence onstage, half wide-eyed, naive child and half shuffling stoner. Both his recorded work and live show ebb and flow comfortably between shimmering pastoral folk rock to harder edged, heavily Crazy Horse influenced electric workouts. The Violator’s set was on point from the first note to the last and was received enthusiastically by the large crowd. The moment that will stick with me going forward occurred during the set closing finale ‘Waken On a Pretty Day’. I had drifted to the back of the hall where there was a bit more elbow room for me to get my old guy shuffle on as Vile and his band mates tucked into a heavy guitar jam that would not have been out of place at a Neil Young & Crazy Horse show. As the band began to soar (with the crowd responding in kind) I found myself viewing the proceedings onstage between the upraised ‘devil horn’ hand gestures of the clearly blissed out hesher dude immediately in front of me. It was an image that perfectly captured my feelings during the most memorable moments of a great set.
Friday’s show was opened by an act with whom I was not previously familiar, Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band. Suffice to say, I went to the gig expecting to love Kurt Vile and the Violators (and I did!) but it was Ryan Davis that delivered the welcome surprises of the evening for this music fan. Davis and his outstanding band exist in a unique and unlikely space that somehow combines authentic honky tonk cred with ironic, bordering on surrealist/existentialist lyrics, and caution to the wind, almost Sonic Youth-esque (or, at least, Wilco-esque) guitar freakouts. A friend who I ran into between bands described them as “George Jones meets Sun Ra”. If that description doesn’t entirely nail Davis’ vibe it certainly nods toward his mix and match approach to creating a sound and form that borrows from disparate elements to create a unique sound and experience. I’ve since backtracked to familiarize myself with the band’s most recent release, ‘New Threats From the Soul’ and I’m now a newly minted and enthusiastic fan of Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band. I will absolutely be in attendance the next time they visit the Pacific Northwest.
