Daniel Rossen @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (April 15, 2014)

Last night I got to share an intimate evening at Music Hall of Williamsburg with Daniel Rossen, who was ending his 3-week long solo tour with William Tyler.

Hailing from Nashville, Tennessee, William Tyler’s plays melodic instrumental rock, featuring some amazing finger-picker guitar compositions. Although he doesn’t speak (aside from his stage banter, mainly consisting of explanations of the songs before he played them), the music does all the talking for him. Each song is its own lengthy tale; a story told through musical expression, allowing us the audience to fill in the blanks. He’s almost like a one man’s Explosions In The Sky, creating powerful moving tracks that just have a way of working their magic on you in emotional ways.

Daniel Rossen graced the stage of Music Hall of Williamsburg without a glamorous set-up. He just had his instruments and his seat, and that was all he needed. It was an intimate showing, something that took some time getting used to considering I’m so used to seeing him grace large stages with Grizzly Bear.

The night saw Daniel share a great deal of personal moments with us, including some new and previously unreleased (and recorded) material. In fact, the first song of the night was a new song that was currently untitled. It could have been mistaken for a dreamy folkier Grizzly Bear track.

The rest of the night featured material off his Silent Hour/Golden Mile solo EP such as “Silent Song” and “Golden Mile”, the latter which he played on 12-string guitar. A few choice Department Of Eagles tracks were shared (“In Ear Park” & “Herringbone”), along with covers of Townes Van Zandt’s “Kathleen” and Judee Sill’s “Waterfall”, which Rossen performed as his 1-song encore. Man, was it a wonderful thing to behold.

He made room for some warm unreleased tracks such as “Not Coming Back”, a song about being upstate, and “Made To Rise” a track which he described as a gift to friends and a “campfire song.” Rossen admitted that he may not end up recording these songs and if so, that made the performances even more special than they already were, as they may be the last we hear of these beautiful gems (unless you go to youtube, of course).

Rossen didn’t mention any plans regarding his solo career or Grizzly Bear, and based on his uncertainly towards most of the unreleased/unrecorded stuff, who knows what to expect. Even so, I’m just happy I got to be a part of such a lovely evening because it was pretty damn special.

Setlist and more photos of both Daniel and William posted below.

Setlist:

1. New Song (Untitled & Unreleased)
2. Up On High
3. Silent Song
4. In Ear Park (Department Of Eagles)
5. Made To Rise (Unreleased)
6. Kathleen (Townes Van Zandt Cover)
7. Herringbone (Department Of Eagles)
8. Saint Nothing
9. Golden Mile
10. Not Coming Back (Unreleased)
11. Return To Form
12. Balmy Night

Encore:
13. Waterfall (Judee Sill Cover)

Daniel Rossen: