A “Storytellers”-style career retrospective tour is an ambitious move for a band that has been together for fewer than 20 years, but The Head & The Heart have never been short on earnestness. On the road supporting the deluxe reissue of their breakthrough debut album, the Seattle collective mesmerized a rare Sunday matinee crowd at the ornate Brooklyn Paramount, proving that the self-referential victory lap might not just be the domain of elder statesmen like Bruce Springsteen and Peter Frampton.00
It helps, of course, that the album played from top to bottom at the early-start Mothers Day concert was a standout, the self-titled LP released 15 springs ago on Sub Pop. The stories the band members told between tunes were engaging and sometimes humorous in a way that engaged both die-hard and casual fans.
The brief album opener “Cats and Dogs” works brilliantly as a set opener too, with The H&H’s trademark harmonies deployed on the poignant line “My roots have grown but I don’t know where they are.”
Following the jaunty, piano-driven “Coeur d’Alene” and “Ghosts,” with its “ba da ba da” (the band likes its la las and whatnot), singer-guitarist Jonathan Russell, clad in harem pants and a sleeveless Metallica “And Justice For All” T-shirt, was the first musician to tell a story: He moved from Virginia to Seattle without much of a plan, got a job busing tables, went for drinks with coworkers, got lost in the city and spent seven hours walking home.
“So anyways a song came out of it, or at least the makings of a song came out of it,” he said. Pianist Kenny Hensley worked through the tune at the Seattle Public Library, a makeshift rehearsal spot, and “he took this next song to the way you know it and love it.” Anyone following the album sequence by memory or on their phone knew he was talking about “Down In The Valley,” which traded the stomp of the earlier tracks for subtlety.
RELATED: THE HEAD & THE HEART INTERVIEW
Drummer Tyler Williams was the next to take the mic, sharing that “Down In The Valley” was the first song he heard from the band, when Russell, with whom he grew up in Richmond, sent him a demo from Seattle. Williams’ girlfriend, now his wife, told him: “You gotta move out there.” He did, and they started the band. “Those roads led us to Matthew Gervais,” he said, handing off the narrative to the band’s outgoing co-frontman.
“This is an amazing building,” Gervais said. “I feel like New York City is spoiling us.” Introducing one of the group’s best-known selections, “Rivers And Roads,” he said: “This next song made its debut in a parking garage in Tacoma, Washington,” noting that it was eventually played in arenas, with The Lumineers and at Madison Square Garden with fellow Seattleite Brandi Carlile
The mid-album track “Honey Come Home” was a nice palate cleanser before the centerpiece of the set, H&H’s breakthrough song, “Lost In My Mind.” The Brudi Brothers, who opened the show with a brilliant set, ran out to join on vocals and arm hugs. The anthemic tune is somewhat restrained on the album, but with celebration on the docket, the band, the Brudis and the crowd turned it into a raucous singalong. Singer/violinist Charity Rose Thielen noted that in the early days of the band, “open mics and parking garages, even it didn’t look like a stage, we always brough people out on that song.”
Hensley, the piano player, was up next, introducing “Winter Song” as a composition that “got its start 22 years ago in my bedroom in LA.” Some of the band sat on the stage floor for a more intimate delivery, imbuing lines like “Summer gone, now winter’s on its way, I will miss the days we had” with extra sentiment.
Drummer Williams told the story of how the band first crossed paths with Sub Pop, the legendary Seattle label behind Nirvana, Soundgarden and later Fleet Foxes and Band Of Horses, a tale involving a lost phone that was found by a label staffer.
“Sounds Like Hallelujah” and “Heaven Go Easy On Me” wrapped up the album portion of the show, with Gervais lauding the record before the finale. “It’s one of those records, maybe you were doing the dishes, maybe you were having a backyard party, maybe you were listening in your car by yourself crying, but it was a record that stayed with you and made you feel like you weren’t alone.”
After a very short break, it was time for 10 more songs from various corners of the group’s catalog. Thielen and Gervais started the set as a duo, launching into “Grace,” a previously unreleased song included on the recently released deluxe edition of the self-titled album.
The rest of the band reemerged and, celebrating another milestone — the one-year-and-a-day anniversary of the newest studio record, “Aperture” — performed the simple, strong and slow album track “Finally Free” and the title song. An early-catalog favorite, “All We Ever Knew,” complete with percussive piano, melodic violin and trademark “la la las,” inspired a crowd clap-along, before two more memorable “Aperture” tracks: “Fire Escape” and “Arrow.”
“Missed Connection,” another tune featuring “la la las,” is a bit of a departure from The Head & The Heart’s trademark sound, owing more to The Killers and Interpol than any jangly folk act, and was well placed as the second-last song of the second set, setting the table for “Shake,” the foot-stomping, soul-baring lead single from album number two, 2013’s “Let’s Be Still.”
Following the jubilant set closer, Gervais, Thielen and Russell returned without the rest of the group to sing “Glory of Music,” from 2019’s “Living Mirage” album. “We are, we are, the power of music,” the trio sang, words zealous enough to make the angsty bands that built the Seattle alt-rock scene that preceded them cringe, but in The Head & The Heart’s hands, they sounded just right.
Leave a Reply