On January 11th I began my concertgoing year with a performance from Rayland Baxter at Brooklyn Steel. The performance came in support of his wonderful third full-length album Wide Awake, which was released via ATO Records.
The show also featured an opening performance from labelmate Margaret Glaspy, who we caught last May at Le Poisson Rouge. Performing a mix of old songs with plenty of new songs that she was very excited to share with us. We hope to get to hear them on a new record soon because they all sounded absolutely delightful.
Last year we covered two of Rayland Baxter’s shows in support of Wide Awake, including a very intimate performance at Baby’s All Right in May and a slightly bigger performance at Bowery Ballroom in July. For me personally, this was my first time seeing Baxter headline (I did catch his opening set for Houndmouth at Terminal 5 in 2016 and his guest appearances at Newport Folk Festival back in 2017).
Baxter and his band tore through their set with confidence and smooth delicate ease that almost made it seem too easy. A good portion of the set included new material, such as highlights as “Hey Larocco” and “Amelia Baker,” along with a beautiful three-song solo section of the set that saw him run through pretty renditions of “Olivia,” “Dreamin” and “Bad Things.”
The biggest surprise of the night came during the encore when they ran through a diverse set of covers that started with the most surprising of all, Mac Miller’s “Come Back to Earth,” and concluded with Neil Young’s “Vampire Blues” and the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated.”
Margaret Glaspy:
Rayland Baxter:
Rayland Baxter setlist:
1. Strange American Dream
2. Mr. Rodriguez
3. Angeline
4. Sandra Monica
5. Everything to Me
6. Olivia (solo)
7. Dreamin (solo)
8. Bad Things (solo)
9. Freakin Me Out
10. Hey Larocco
11. Casanova
12. Amelia Baker
Encore:
13. Let It All Go, Man (solo)
14. Yellow Eyes
15. Come Back to Earth (Mac Miller cover)
16. Vampire Blues (Neil Young cover)
17. I Wanna Be Sedated (Ramones cover)
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