By the time Noah Gundersen took the Q Cafe stage after 10 p.m.
Friday night, the one-room coffee shop was so full that people were
standing outside near the windows, hoping to hear the sold-out show.
The crowd indoors could hardly wait for Gundersen and his band to start
performing: they clapped along as the band warmed up, yelling for more.
When the set finally started, and Gundersen played the opening guitar
line to "Caroline" on the newly-released Saints and Liars EP, his fans roared and immediately began clapping in time to the song's rollicking beat.
Given
Gundersen's immense talent--his
voice is pitch perfect and warm but still able to wail with
angst--there were a few moments where it seemed like his backing band,
known as the Courage, overpowered him. He had as many as five other
musicians on stage with him at the Q Cafe, and--during the early songs
of his set--the instrumentation felt heavy-handed. It seemed liked
Gundersen's guitar and his sister Abby's violin and backing vocals
would have been enough to translate the power of this songs.
But
when the band started playing the lilting, subdued "The Ocean," the
musicians started working with the songs rather than against them. The
performance finally clicked: Gundersen also performed a brand new song,
and there was this awe-inspiring moment when both violinists played
double stops and Noah pounded his guitar. It felt like the first Bright
Eyes tour after the release of Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground: this is how a young, gifted singer-songwriter makes a band work.
And from that point on, it became clear why Gundersen plays with the
Courage, rather than going solo: the full band brings people to their
feet and gives his music an alt-country tinge. And people connect to
that sound in a totally different way than they do to Gundersen's
folkier, quieter songs. (Think about Ryan Adams: Like Gundersen, he
writes beautiful, heartbreaking lyrics, but it's the backing
instrumentation on "To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)" that
gets people dancing.)
Toward the end of Gundersen's set, someone from the crowd called
out, "From this point out, there will be no one sitting down,"
referring to rows of thearte-like chairs at the Q Cafe. Everyone rose
to their feet as Gundersen played
Moss on a Rolling Stone,
singing along to the chorus. By the time the band started "Oh Momma,"
fans were on the stage, dancing behind Gundersen as he played. And this
is the power of Gundersen's fans: they truly understand the 20-year-old
musician performing in front of them, and they are uninhibited in their
support. That's just as powerful as any song Gundersen would write.
- Paige Richmond