Seeing Shakey Graves live is magical. He’s a perfect one-man act: personable, witty, with a foot wringing the bass drum and his hands winding away on acoustic. Graves, whose real name is Alejandro Rose-Garcia, played well into the night, cutting through various genres from folk and country to rock.
Sean Rowe opened the evening with heavy, hearty folk music, crisp with some experimental add-ons here and there. Shakey Graves walked on at about 11:30 p.m. and we were all immediately at his whim, bobbing heads to the celebratory wak of a drum beat and his original, spine-tingling guitar riffs, specifically in songs like “Once in a While.” He topped a handful of audience favorites—nothing like hearing the passionate shouts of lyrics from real fans of a rising artist—and he showed off his new album, And the War Came.
Even when his voice was inaudible, with that ache-y, folky wear and tear that turns his vocal chords into rice pudding (this is just my take), he kept us mesmerized with his brief and humorous digressions.
I recall him saying something along the lines of: “If you put your heart into it, you can fuck anything up.” At other points he brought the audience to repeat his lyrics back to him but had the openness to say that he realized half of us would just stand there awkwardly. He poked fun at Iggy Azalea and his shitty 16-year-old self. Shakey Graves is genuinely funny, with an air of cool confidence that makes his act uncommon and sincere.
Last night, Shakey Graves filled the warm air of a sold-out High Noon Saloon with his Texan-twanged folk take on life and the vicious rumble of his guitar.