barry burton

Damien Jurado

…with Jeremy Enigk too! I saw them last weekend (only once). It was one of those great shows where you buy the ticket on account of one band and then realize that another great band is playing as well.

Jurado opened, and despite the fact that I have several of his older albums, I only recognized a single song. He is quite prolific. Luckily his open, acoustic, story teller songs are almost as enjoyable and accessible on the first listen. As he played the set, just him and a guitar, I came to the realization that he was doing something very similar to the Iron and Wine thing long before Sam Beam burst onto the scene (no disrespect of course). I’m not sure, but the difference maybe being the lack of a Postal Service cover which was featured on a commercial or movie or whatever. It does seem odd to me that after all these years he is still working out of such obscurity. Perhaps because there are too many good songs, with none of them being marketed much. Not that I’m complaining.

Enigk next played an acoustic set, although he also made use of keyboard in some songs, but with the single instrument, and one that was attempting to sound like strings, it still felt acoustic. I lack all his solo stuff, but I do have some Sunny Day albums, and since he played a few songs off of those (as he informed us, carefully chosen ones limited to those he wrote and those which worked without a band) I ironically ended up knowing a good number of the songs he played.