Traversing songs like Let It Be and Take Me Home, Country Roads as well as their own diverse original songs, Adam Ezra Group’s sound has bits and pieces of folk, alternative rock and pop music. Playing two sets at Jackson Gore Inn “until the sun goes down” as lead singer Adam Ezra Olshansky declared, they offered a deft mix of genres that managed to stay true to their own sound. So although a song like Devil’s Side evoked a Dave Matthews Band comparison and 14 Days recalled a bit of Matchbox Twenty, they had a consistent and compelling sound that bypassed any strict comparison to other bands.

Adam Ezra Group took advantage of the outdoor stage set with the Okemo Mountain in the background. The acoustics were phenomenal, giving their sets a crisp and clean sound. The band are also slick entertainers. In addition to holding a meet and greet inbetween sets (the leader singer introduced himself and his bandmates personally and warmly to everyone who came up to the table), they held a singalong/playalong number with a group of kids from the audience who crowded on stage and banged on anything within reach. They kept the audience engaged from start to finish and turned out a great evening of music.

[Austin, TX] we were there to see a ‘better’ band but Rockboy assured me he’d seen this band before and they had a crazy lead singer who would writhe on the floor – that’s always all right by me so I waited patiently – the band is an assortment of young and very old geeks in red shorts and red t-shirts – and also a hussy lead vocalist in too-low white jeans, a white crop top, and an eager g-string – they started and the best I can do to explain their sound is Parrothead space rock – they kind of segued into funkier stuff that might be compared to Red Hot Chili Peppers if I were feeling charitable – I wasn’t and I’m not – and it turned out that Rockboy had mistaken this band for another more exciting band so no entertaining lead singer was going to appear either – this band was awful and we left before even seeing the ‘better’ band – the really old hippie guy on bass was kind of cute I have to admit because I kept wondering how he ever ended up in this band of odd young people… I’m not sure I have the name of this band right or Rockboy was correct on the lead singer and he just didn’t show this night – it doesn’t matter because you don’t need to see them

so Rockboy billed this band as a fantastic garage rock band he’d discovered at a previous SXSW – this didn’t really fit what I found online about them but I had faith – uh, well, not at all – they’re a mix of all of my guilty music pleasures: The Eagles, Tom Petty, The Beach Boys, Cracker, Jackson Browne – his voice was very David Lowery at times, which is definitely a plus for me – they were a tight bundle of country psych, jam rock, and southern rock – they made me intensely homesick for California and for long desert highways and for the 70s (even if all of these are ½ fantasy memories of mine) – they are from San Francisco – so their sound wasn’t necessarily anything new, but their sound was smooth and full and they came off as strikingly professional

[Nashville, TN] a skinny boy flouncing around in the audience kept catching my eye because he was wearing ridiculously short retro (80s) basketball shorts with the upcut thigh and an old-school sports tank top – by the time he made it on stage there was a foxtail attached to his shorts – silly boy – so they started their set with silly boy on the ground playing guitar and enthusiastic Bruce-Springsteen-drummer on stage (thrashed his head in time with the drumming throughout the WHOLE of their set) – of course, the crowd was moved by this novel approach but their sound kept the crowd in their grip – it was kind of incredible – so intense and full, it seemed impossible that two people were making it – they were channeling the spirit of Tia Carrera (local psych metal band) but were far more upright and composed – they were, in essence, a garage jam band, but the one you wish you\”d been – there was a lot of Black Sabbath riffing but, in the end, I\”d classify them as a dark Cheap Trick – I predict that punk-power-pop is the wave of the future

former member of The Weary Boys, a band that never impressed me as much as they did the general Austin populace – I wasn\”t feeling moved by this incarnation until I realized I really liked them, I did – they\”re founded in harmless country rock but there\”s just enough Southern rock and jam band posturing to make them just up my alley

[San Luis Obispo, CA] no mystery here: boys in plaid shirts and worn jeans from a coastal California town playing party-time jam band country – I would assume, with my own prejudices and on the basis of the row of fancy guitars that outnumbered the people in the band, that they’re well off kids “dropping out” for a bit before they become well-respected businessmen – they were fine musicians but just ordinary, singing songs about 12-pack time instead of 9 to 5 time – amusing part was the guy, who after dozing on the side of the stage before the show, transformed into the band’s showman, jumping into the crowd and then playing from the balcony like a wicked evil badass

equal parts stoner metal, 80s goth, shoegaze, and jam band (at least during some of the drum solos) – you’re probably picturing a bunch of guys on stage right now you big sexist – but no, an all-girl band, and girls of about 23 at that – breaking through all the barriers, this generation of girls are – and hotties, every last one of them, with the sort of style that redeems it – the shy one with bangs covering her face and a flannel shirt a la the 1990s on lead electric guitar with the voice of a sweet demon – the main vocalist also on electric guitar with Robert Smith’s hair in white and a longish tailored black jacket – pretty-pretty girl on bass in dead-center who ought not to have chewed gum through the whole show – and then the drummer. oh the drummer! when they were setting up, I thought, “there’s one bitter glum girl” but by the time she got going she was helplessly ecstatic, hands and grins a-flying – some people were born to be drummers and this girl is one of them – she is the driving force behind the band, leading her friends and the audience from slow melancholy wailing to driving thrash to genuine dance rock beats – they used echo effect on all of the vocals which is kind of cheating but definitely created an effect, reminded me of Siouxsie in spirit to some extent but of a much harder Mazzy Star most definitely – general aura reminiscent of The Cure with one song in particular completely replicating the dark ringing undertones – especially skilled at mixing tempos without seeming false about it and then drawing you into a lovely mindless repetitive loop of drone – their most memorable song, although maybe not their best song, was “Billie Holiday”: it began with one of them harmonizing original lyrics to the others spelling out B-I-L-L-I-E-H-O-L-I-D-A-Y – it sounds cheesy but it wasn’t – the song then progressed into a dark cover of “My Guy” – can’t figure these girls out in general I would speculate they’re clean upper class girls with solid music training and burner leanings but that would just be speculation – it is not speculation to say that I like them quite a lot – 3 other best things about the show: 1) crowd was distinctively hipster-folk (consciously but casually dressed: shabby chic pants, camouflage hats, belly button length beards, etc.) but probably because Akron/Family followed, 2) their email list asked your gender, and 3) a guy in the crowd raised his hands up in the shape of a heart and kept flicking it at pretty-pretty but she didn’t (or refused to) notice

Bluesy rocker band fronted by Celeste Griffin who adds a good deal of authentic vocal grit to an already stellar performance. The set was ethereal and graceful and wholly captivating to anyone in the bar tonight.

G. Love & Special Sauce spent the first half of their set as a credible jam band with a prevailing jazz feel. The songs weren’t especially memorable but the performance was surprising tasteful and their musicianship was stellar.

That all flew out the window half way through the set when G. Love introduced the song Booty Call. He asked the audience to vote for the clean version or the dirty version (as if the band was in any way prepared to sing the clean version…) The harmonica overload that led into the song was intriguing. The song was dumb and the chorus was obnoxious. And the rest of the set followed suit.

The next song was so stupid, I am here to offer the partial lyrics to the song: “Bring your own beverage Just make sure it’s cold.” The song is called, you know, Cold Beverage. WTF?!? It’s like G. Love is a 10-year old latch-key kid trapped in a man’s body, writing about stupid shit he does after school while waiting for his parents to come home.

Guess it wouldn’t be a G. Love & Special Sauce concert with Baby’s Got Sauce. Move over, Jimmy Ray, you’ve got competition for the lamest song ever to become a hit. Whatever cred G. Love built in the first 25 minutes was demolished in the second 25.

I was annoyed at first with their youthful self-important casual-hipster postering. They were basically gypsy-punk-lite with a folky-campfire bent. If they were being serious, they started the band when they were biking to Mexico and Canada together and “are still friends.” The vocalizing and music was intentionally messy but the 8-band-member choruses were engaging. I was especially charmed that their second song was “Daisy, daisy, give me your answer true.” Some of the band members were of questionable talent (spoon guy), but some had former band geek potential.

The Films started strong on their set. Heavy influences of the Kinks and the Who were readily apparent. But after the fourth song, Pour it Out, where the boys were joined by Butch Walker on piano, their set kind of fizzled. Their look was straight out of Young Indiana Jones, their jams were stuck in the 70′s and there was an unsettling southern vibe to their music. But not a Athens, GA vibe, more like rural Tennessee. Nothing was bad but if you had told me they had just won a Battle of the Bands contest, I would have believed you.

mix of psychedelia and folk in an indie style – reminiscent of Grateful Dead and Neil Young , many band members, we enjoyed them

The Builders and the Butchers is a five man jam band. Why they were opening for Amanda Palmer is beyond me, but they were clearly game for the off-kilter crowd and avant garde performances of the other bands on the bill. Still, their music was a series of straight up rock jams, admittedly hard to figure out what they hell they were singing about. Lots of references to blood and other dark imagery. During their closing song, When It Rains, lead singer Ryan Sollee passed out to the audience a bunch of things to bang along to with the band.

The bassist played the entire set with only three strings after one snapped during the first number.

not as dirty (“music for the unwashed and well-read” as they say) as I remembered them “darling curly haired middle-aged member still smoked on stage but nobody else did” think the vision I have of them all living together in a trailer in a incessant jam session is just that (a vision), easy to pick out the member who sang on the cover of Gin and Juice with his highish irreverent voice, had them classified in my head as hard bluegrass but totally inaccurate, covered a huge range of styles on a generally “rootsy” (as they said) foundation, started off with strong twinges of Cajun but depending on who sang veered toward British invasion, Southern rock, etc. etc., they’re a more countrified Grateful Dead, you should know that guitars, mandolins, bass, accordions, keyboards, drums, fiddles, banjos, lap steels are employed

In contrast to The National, Modest Mouse grabbed your attention and did their part as a solid warm up for R.E.M. Yet another six man band with two drum kits and an energetic lead singer, Issac Brock, who didn’t so much sing as spew the words. He also played guitar with his teeth. The band sounds like the product of The Presidents of the United States of America and Stone Temple Pilots. In fact, can’t you hear STP doing a really dirty version of Peaches?

The highlight was a slow, rolling version of The Good Times Are Killing Me. The band famously includes Johnny Marr, he of Smiths fame (assuming you’re old enough to appreciate that in any discernible way.) I zoned out for long stretches of their set, which in my opinion, started to drag towards the end. But to their credit (or perhaps less so to mine) much of the crowd was enthusiastically into it.

some amalgam of the Weary Boys, Weary Boys are super popular in Austin but have always struck me as a little too audience-pleasing, I enjoyed this group though, five or six people on stage playing in jam-fashion on a variety of instruments, Grateful Dead with a little more bluegrass

proggy with a tinge of metal and Calexico, went from White Rabbits to Trail of Dead, little boys trying to mute their excitement: obviously from Colorado (were actually from San Marcos and the excitement was because it was their first show in Austin), the happiest the bass player wore no shoes

So there are very few bands that could get me to come out for a concert on a “12 Days of Christmas Tour” but Sister Hazel just happens to be one of them. Sister Hazel’s last radio hit (well, only radio hit) “All for You” was 10 years ago, but the band has active with tours and new albums despite the lack of mainstream support, including their first holiday album Santa’s Playlist. In 2000, I saw them at a fans-only radio show at Sunset Station Casino in Las Vegas and I was blown away. The four guys Ken Block, Andrew Copeland, Jett Beres and Ryan Newell (along with drummer Mark Trojanowski) all sing vocals and their harmonies are transcendent. Their musicianship is stellar and I almost thought, almost thought they could pull off a Christmas show that I would enjoy.

Rock versions of Christmas songs, and lots of them, but Sister Hazel found a balance between their southern rock roots and unique interpretations of traditional Christmas tunes. They brought a unique flavor to “White Christmas” (a full reggae version and an acappella version during a stunning rendition of “River”) and a convincing bluegrass rendition of “The Dreidel Song” which prompted Block and Copeland to trade “Dueling Banjos” briefly. Christmas Time Again became a rollickin’ tongue-in-cheek rap song complete with Beres in fully blinged Santa Claus gear.

A orchestra and choir from the South Shore Conservatory were on stage for a number of songs. For most, the strings and the choir were completely drowned out but occasionally, the effect hit home, particularly on “Silent Night” and “O Holy Night” which became heavenly gospel numbers. I got the impression that the orchestral version of a song like “Champagne High” might have been something to hear, except that there was no discernible effect. You saw them playing but it was the band that you heard.

A prerecorded version of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” (mixed with the strain of “Jingle Bells”) played during brief interludes and the show closed out with the studio version of “There’s Something in the Air (At Christmas)” which sounded like it was sung by the Chipmunks (on the album, it’s a choir of children.) Copeland’s mic went out during “One Little Christmas Tree” and again during “Please Come Home for Christmas” and again at the opening of “Run Rudolph Run” which prompted him to observe that somebody didn’t want Sister Hazel to sing the songs he chose for Santa’s Playlist. Whatever. Even the technical problems didn’t ruin the night.

The four college students in the row in front of me were so disturbingly drunk even before Sister Hazel started their set, that I almost walked out. I was boxed into my seat, and thus privy to my own little sideshow of drunken dirty dancing. It only ruined one song, “Change Your Mind” which is actually one of my hands down favorite Sister Hazel songs. But to my pleasant surprise, all of the non-holiday songs on the setlist were among my favorites, so it turned out to be a great night for that, too.

Sister Hazel 12 Days of Christmas Setlist
Twas the Night before Christmas (intro)
Merry Christmas Baby
Little Drummer Boy
Change Your Mind
One Little Christmas Tree
Happy Birthday to You
White Christmas
Twas the Night before Christmas (interlude)
River / White Christmas
Silent Night (w/ South Shore Conservatory)
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
The Dreidel Song
Your Winter (w/ South Shore Conservatory)
Please Come Home for Christmas (w/ South Shore Conservatory)
It’s a New Year (Just Get Along)
Twas the Night before Christmas (interlude)
Run Rudolph Run
Happy
All For You
Twas the Night before Christmas (interlude)

1st Encore
Christmas Time Again
Your Mistake (w/ South Shore Conservatory)
Champagne High (w/ South Shore Conservatory)
I’ll Be Home for Christmas (w/ South Shore Conservatory)
Twas the Night before Christmas (interlude)

2nd Encore
O Holy Night (w/ South Shore Conservatory)
There’s Something in the Air (At Christmas)

Pat McGee, the name brand vocalist of the Pat McGee Band, was on loan tonight to open for Sister Hazel’s 12 Days of Christmas Tour. Mr. McGee learned a handful of holiday tunes in addition to promoting the band’s new album These Days (The Virginia Sessions).

He’s an engaging frontman, accompanied only by his guitar (and John Taylor on keyboards for “Come Back Home”) and some witty banter. His half hour set was an impressive showing, with that growling rocker voice that used to be the sole province of grunge. After his version of “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” he explained that he learned a few songs for the tour, “I learned them all and typed them into my WordPerfect.” He also told a story about how his sister made him listen to “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in 1983, and he’s heard it every year ever since. “I had to download the karaoke version to this crap” before launching in an abridged version of the Band Aid charity song.

The best of the night was “Come Back Home” and the worst, by far, was a Pat McGee Band tune called “Elizabeth” (for what it’s worth, the album version is more tolerable.)

Pat McGee Setlist
Guess We Were
It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
Up on the Housetop
Elizabeth
Do They Know It’s Christmas?
Come Back Home
O Come, All Ye Faithful

make me laugh, they’re good “really good” for a minute in the escalation of the jam and then it’s the same old same old

rowdy and sweet Irish music and then blew us away with some kind of prog-rock craziness, astounding violin player hooked up to a whammy pedal, drum and violinist competed for ferocious fastness, a jam band really, many many references to alcohol and rehab

love them, Dave Matthews/Police, lead has a man’s voice in this little little boy body, he’s a mainstream philosopher-i.e. he still has hope, refreshing, every song enjoyable, will be amazing as he ages

triumphant hopped-up Pink Floyd, spiritual leaders for tripping hippies, hilarious-twenty-some people in white robes jumping like mad on the stage, energy++++, Up With People on psychedelics

actually wanted to give them a chance because self-described as a sacrilegious mix of bluegrass, calypso, salsa, Afro-pop, funk, rock and jazz, with BeautifulTeacher and HerHonky and all wiped out so gave them 5 minutes, recurring visions of my neighbor hula-hooping

supposedly went from punk to country, funk rock but sounded too much like Robert Randolph and the Family Band to stay and listen to

described as an “mad scientist,” at first I was terribly impressed, him alone on a stage-wickedly fast guitar, singer/songwriter mixed with jamminess and a definitive tinge of Bobby McFerrin (weird mouth moves), but then he had long moments without the guitar even in his hand and the music continued, hopefully playing to tracks of himself but happened to often to make for a pleasing stage show

Colorado jam band, like we need more of those, Chronicle described as Cajun-inspired “slamgrass,” disappointing mush esp in that I liked the song from them that I put on the Austin mix

first drum set, resounding bass, more rocking than the rest, enjoyable

5 guys with 2 guitars, 1 fiddle, 1 banjo and 1 massive bass, LOVED them, individually tight and fluid together, bluesgrass jam band that strayed into funk and “Friend of the Devil,” could have had more interplay on the stage with each other