Festival Pier Philadelphia, PA: July 13, 2006

by Jim McCoy

Philly being a strong union town, it's a small wonder that there weren't protests being lodged on behalf of the roadies of the college-rock outfit Guster on Thursday night. In front of madman hand-percussionist Brian is a team of multi-instrumentalists that change roles during virtually every song during the 90 minute set. Acoustic & electric guitars, bass, keyboards, lap steel, banjo and even a trumpet were all seen being placed in the hands of the band members by overworked roadies during the show. Witty frontman Ryan knows how to work and humor an audience, at one point sarcastically thanking a young man for sitting atop his friend's shoulders and flashing his "manboobs." This, of course, led to more than a dozen men of various ages and builds placing themselves shirtless above the crowd as Guster continued to provide modern rock with tight harmonies and a big sound to the delighted audience.

Whether or not modern rock is your bag, it's difficult not to admire the talent and infectious enthusiasm of the band. From the opener "Demons" to the encore, Guster was full of energy, full of smiles and played with abandon. "Joe" plays an absolutely wicked distorted lap steel in addition to his bass, guitar and banjo, and "Adam" and Ryan manage to play bass as well as their guitars. (The instruments are two entirely different animals, as any guitar player who has tried to pick up a bass with a band can attest.) The end result of the varied instrumentation and styles is that the band manages to meld elements of rock from the last 4 decades without sounding overly derivative from any one era.

Appropriately, the entire band took the stage shirtless for the "One Man Wrecking Machine" encore.

Guster was preceded by the stunningly talented Ray LaMontagne, who strapped on his acoustic guitar and took the stage for an hour set. Accompanied by a full band for this tour, Mr. Lamontagne opened with "Three More Days" from the forthcoming Till the Sun Turns Black (RCA Records, 2006), mixing in new numbers with tunes from his breathtaking debut, Trouble (RCA Records, 2004). LaMontagne's unique, soulful voice manages to somehow simultaneously sound both ragged and smooth as he turns out tales of hard-luck characters and ballads of love lost. LaMontagne's accompanying electric/acoustic guitarist added some nice steel lines to "Hold You in My Arms," "Trouble" and others, the full band complimenting the set rather than muddying up the sound.

There were plenty of LaMontagne loyalists in the crowd of thousands and the chatter indicated that new fans were certainly made, but the curious pairing of Guster with Ray LaMontagne was clearly frustrating for LaMontagne. He is an old-school performer rather than an entertainer, and a bill with local talent Amos Lee or someone like David Gray makes much more sense than a pairing with a modern rock band and their legion of younger, cell phone toting fans. (Guster's Ryan called LaMontange "the real deal" from the stage, so there appears to be no beef between the performers themselves.)

LaMontagne announced that he would perform two quieter solo numbers solo to close, but he threw down his guitar in frustration after performing only one, "All the Wild Horses." A vantage point near the stage revealed that there were more attendees treating the show as a social event rather than a performance during LaMontagne’s set, which clearly was upsetting to the artist. It remains to be seen whether the seemingly painfully shy LaMontagne will adapt by blocking out the crowd noise as he performs his quieter numbers or if tours will be booked that are more accommodating to his sound and enamored fans. Under any scenario, there is no denying that Ray LaMontagne is an incredible talent with great years ahead of him.

Donavan Frankenreiter played a 15 minute set to open, backed by a complete blues-touched rock band, and revealed excellent vocal ability.

Labels: Ray LaMontagne