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Instead of a “normal” show with a headliner and an opener, this was something altogether quite different. Both headliner John Wesley Harding and openers The Minus Five (i.e. the nom de plume of singer-songwriter and former Young Fresh Fellows leader Scott McCaugheyThe Decemberists, minus frontman Colin Meloy, as well as former R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck. In addition to having the same backing band, the other unusual thing about this show is that instead of The Minus Five coming out to do their set and then having the headliner come out a few minutes later, there were no breaks between sets and they alternated sets. For the first track, everyone was on stage and then Harding proceeded to leave the stage and The Minus Five played a short set. After about half an hour, Harding came out and played a half hour set of solo material mainly consisting of songs from his new album The Sound of His Own Voice along with one older song that was taken as a request. After this, the band (including McCaughey) joined him for a more raucous set that featured newer material alongside material like his cover of Roky Erickson‘s “If You Have Ghosts”.
Overall, I’d say that the last part of the show was more enjoyable than the first few and that it got better as it went along. Clearly, everyone involved was having fun onstage and it showed in the performance. Wes is also a great between-song banterer and some of his anecdotes between songs were alone worth the price of admission.
