"He knows one of our songs!"
And thus the story is told by one half of the Watson Twins as to how they met M Ward. The end result being their presence here in Albuquerque opening for him. The song in question is called "Southern Manners." Ripping into it with laid back ease and laden with soul and blues, they let their harmonies plead gently but intensely over the top of the song.
During the course of their set, they switch off on guitar duty with the other doing either percussion and/or backing vocals. It leads one to interesting questions over division of labor. They keep their set spare and minimal, only employing a keyboard player to keep up with them. The rest is kept pared down to guitar, melody and harmony with an occasional stab of small percussion like tamborine.
The effects, instantly both haunting and soothing, speak for themselves. Having provided the Duke City with enough peaceful vibes to soothe a herd of angry elephants, they thank the audience as they leave us to wait for M Ward.
Not long after, Ward takes to the stage in soft, subdued lighting which instantly renders him unrecognizable and evokes thoughts of him solely as "Him" from She and Him fame. The second guitarist runs a steady rhythm on acoustic as Ward tosses off one hot bluesy lick after another. Finishing the song, Ward starts to sing "I want it all" as the light kicks up, but just a little. He leads the band into a rambling blues number that shuffles and swaggers with the most rollicking of folk flavor. He sets the tone early by becoming a grab bag of disparate old school flavors.
Keeping the shuffle but opting for more force, the band kicks into the next song with a definite Bo Diddley beat. Preferring business to foreplay, Ward's band has now launched into three songs with very little time taken up in between. By the start of the fourth, though, Ward finally says hi to Albuquerque as he dives into a ditty somewhere between Charlie Daniels, Social D and the Beach Boys. He's not vintage so much as he is what vintage was coined to cover up: thrift store. His reach becomes more eclectic with each song selection.
The whole time, he belts out rugged, throaty vocals that shouldn't work. Not only do they work, but once you've heard them, you can't imagine them any other way. His voice rings out like a time warp transmission, echoing messages from the past through vintage speakers that distort the sound as they're unable to contain what pours out of them. In this way, his voice is perfectly suited to the music he plays.
When digging into a poppier, more contemporary vein, Ward lets the drummer take over as the bass drum starts to throb with the opening salvo of "Never Had Nobody Like You." Ward sings about seeing the dark side of the moon with a deft touch of contrition but more of a sly wink. As he moves into the next song, Ward finally tilts his hand for those that are watching. Played by any other band, the song would be pure rockabilly, but Ward deftly weaves in and out of genres like a musicologist David Bowie, chameolonically shifting from musical folklore to folklore.
The band slows the pace down a bit as Ward plays his first ballad of the evening. It comes out atmospheric and bluesy as Ward takes his time to really tease out leads. Keeping with this pace, Ward sits at the piano and lets his band do the heavy lifting for another slow burn ballad. A girl somewhere in the audience screams out for the song "Chinese Translation."
Ward stops and lookes to the audience with more self assuredness than most people have in a lifetime. "That will come soon enough," he gently responds, "First, I thought I'd play a few other songs until we get to that one." The audience cheers in approval as Ward has won them over with what is (now) obviously not a shy demeanor.
The band proceeds to take an Appalachian love song and turn it into an extended jam tinged with psychedelia. Upon completion, Ward and his band decide to stretch out as the drummer plays a simple four to the floor beat for the next few songs and the band rocks out accordingly. I always seem to hear a lot about the "new Nashville." I can't imagine it sounds anything like this and it makes me sad as Ward rips out another lead from his bag of vintage, this one somewhere between surf and bluegrass.
The band continues to rip into one style to the next as they go from power chord country to taking on Chuck Berry's over annunciated brand of blues with "Roll Over, Beethoven." A great way to end the normal set, really.
Returning to the stage, the bands dives straight into a honkytonk tornado before immediately launching into their heaviest number yet, courtesy of Ward's hammering piano skills. A style, of course, borrowed from the original killer, Jerry Lee Lewis. Standing up bars before the song is over, Ward bows to the audience and leaves just as anonymously as he arrived.
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