Shakey Graves brought his evolving Americana sounds to a packed house at the Truman, June 5
The evening closed with a surprise duet featuring the headliner and his new bride, Stephanie Hunt, who had opened the show as Buffalo Hunt.
Shakey Graves. // photo by Tyler Hunt
I first saw Austin, Texas native Alejandro Rose-Garcia—stage name Shakey Graves—in 2015 at the Blue Note in Columbia. Several months later, the actor with credits on Friday Night Lights and Spy Kids 3 would win the Best Emerging Artist award at the 2015 Americana Music Awards.
It’d been a few years, but I’d been a repeat listener of Rose-Garcia’s Kafkaesque departure from boot throttlin’ folk, roots, and blues in favor of the lush experimentalism of his 2018 project, Can’t Wake Up, and wanted to hear a number of them live for the first time. When I got to The Truman on the eve of June 5, I arrived at a house fuller than Netflix’s list of failed cash grabs.
As I shuffled towards the bar in the far back, Rose-Garcia was already midway through “Hard Wired,” with finger plucks and palm-slapped strings lacing his raspy vocals. He pittered along through the 2014 track off his sophomore album, And The War Came, following it with “The Donor Blues” and “Ready Or Not.”
Shakey Graves became known for his minimalist arsenal, a one-man show flavor that features his signature kick pedal suitcase drum and a bevy of semi-hollow-bodied guitars. For at least half the night, Rose-Garcia was doing it. But Shakey’s more recent studio albums and growing sonic repertoire have necessitated the use of a multi-talented group of musicians on a number of entries tonight.
Having secured some Jameson in a plastic cup, I settled into the crowd for a run of the set that included “Family and Genus,” “Built To Roam,” “Nobody’s Fool,” and “Kids These Days”—all odes to the more traditional Shakey Graves style.
At or around five songs in, Rose-Garcia finally got to some of the psychedelia-adjacent Can’t Wake Up material, beginning with “Mansion Door”—the most sonically expansive track on that album. Winding and emotional, tinged with some shoegazey glazing—this is one of Shakey Graves’ best hooks and arrangements, and the crowd was mouthing the words along throughout.
The trend continued with “Counting Sheep,” which opens with a bouncy bassline before it settles into the familiar pitter patter of soft strums that very much gives dreamy bedroom pop meets rootsy-indie-Americana pop.
“Excuses,” one of my personal favorite Shakey Graves recordings, came in with some more slow strumming. “I can’t afford to fall in love,” Rose-Garcia croons in an ode to lost time and discarded opportunities, personal shortcomings, lack of agency, and weights to bear.
“Dining Alone,” a creeping, Western whistler featuring some crispy steel slide guitar, is another highlight. Backed by Rayland Baxter on the Can’t Wake Up record, Rose-Garcia dished out a live version that has its own stripped-down quirks to appreciate.
The full band returned again for “Dearly Departed” (original recording feat. Esmé Patterson). This started out more solemn, but the crowd really opened up in unison with the longer, crisper strums from the artist as the And The War Came hit progressed.
All by himself up there once again, Rose-Garcia strummed a semi-hollow-bodied beauty intermittently. He was clearly going into one of his biggest hits, if not the biggest, “Tomorrow.” Released as a single in 2016, Rose-Garcia told the crowd he wrote the lyrics for the song as a 17-year-old who wanted to write a love song but “had never been in love.”
“All of a sudden, while I was writing it, the moon came out, and I created this beautiful sort of anti-love song. It wasn’t a love song at all; it was a song about a total fear of what was coming next in life,” Rose-Garcia said to the whistles and yelps that seemed to continue to echo throughout.
“Well, I’m tired of losing. I used to win every night of the week,” Shakey groveled in the beginning, alone onstage in his cowboy hat, finally reconciling his loose, sporadic chords with his voice and merging them together: “Back when sanctioned amphetamines were the staples of our childhood physique.”
I made a note of just how well it came off live when some other songs could differ somewhat, stylistically, depending on the stage setup.
Before moving into the outro for “Tomorrow,” a stagehand swapped Rose-Garcia’s semi-hollow-bodied guitar out with an acoustic, and the artist started plucking right into the twang and bustle of “Roll The Bones.”
Shakey’s earliest and probably still also his most beloved hit to the fans opens as a solo effort, with more raspy, howling vocals. As blues riffs plodded along, Rose-Garcia’s delivery gradually became more urgent. By the second verse, the guitar was a bit louder and more disagreeable. This song was what launched Shakey Graves’ career, and the fans give it all the respect that distinction deserves.
The wooing only increased. Electricity ignited on the strings as Rose-Garcia opened up on his most popular and career-changing hit to date. “So it goes…” He let out a raspy yelp, which garners more whistles from the audience.
Clapping was contagious as the strings roared into another plummeting verse on its own merit. The plucking silenced suddenly and rared up again, volume increasing to its pique. The riff went on and on, but people were having it. His crooning, subtle howl got a final series of roars and wails before he slowly strummed the closing chord. Applause abound.
For the encore, Rose-Garcia called Stephanie Hunt—who had opened the show earlier under her moniker, Buffalo Hunt—out to the stage. With a big pair of thick-rimmed glasses affixed to her face, the dark-haired musician, clad in a dress that appeared to feature postcards held throughout in clear plastic cases, proceeded to sing a couple of unplanned duets with Rose-Garcia, her husband since April of this year.
“I didn’t tell her that she was doing this,” Rose-Garcia says beforehand. “Yeah, I’m curious what’s happening,” Hunt replies.
Rose-Garcia and Hunt came together gently for “As Long As You Love Me,” a Backstreet Boys cover that they weren’t afraid to alter to fit their joint styles. The crowd was digging it. It’d be hard not to. They were adorable.
There was a massive applause before Rose-Garcia asked, “Can we get the band back out here?”
A bluesy intro and plucked high notes lead into “Unlucky Skin” and “Chinatown,” as Hunt harmonized with Rose-Garcia. In short, I appreciated this iteration Shakey Graves and what he’s done since he became an indie upstart roughly a decade ago. He’s maybe pivoted towards country more than I would have suspected back in the day, but his blend of defiant blues, folk, country, and rock and roll ensures a good time, both at his live performances and, indeed in many pockets of his evolving discography.
