The Avett Brothers gently soothed Cricket Wireless Amphitheater last night

The Avett Brothers with Langhorne Slim & the Law
Cricket Wireless Amphitheater, Bonner Springs
Friday, June 20

Those who’ve never seen an Avett Brothers show, and are only familiar with the studio albums, usually get a bit of a shock at some point in their first concert. There’s a lot of yelling. It’s fun to watch NPR types in plaid shirts and sandals get their hair blown back when there’s the first blood-curdling screech from Seth or Scott Avett. It raises the hair on the back of your neck and gives you one hell of a set of goosebumps.

For last night’s concert at Cricket Wireless Amphitheater, those shrieks and yells were slow to come, as the Avett Brothers started out slow and eased their way into the show. You’d expect something like “Head Full of Dreams” to come midset, but the elegiac number started things off. “Shame” was third, and it was a good solid half-hour into the set before anything rollicking got heart rates up above resting, and that was a pretty midtempo cover of George Jones’ “The Race Is On.”

Goodness knows, the harmonies are what brings everyone to an Avett Brothers show. Now that they’ve a full-time fiddle player in Tania Elizabeth, they can really get going, and it seems a shame to waste all that energy, because what keeps you at an Avett Brothers show is knowing that they’ll kick things into gear, and you can kick up your heels. Watching Elizabeth move all over the stage as she complemented Joe Kwon’s cello work 

“Kick Drum Heart” got that sense of energy and verve back, and I saw that the band could take that song – and, indeed, its predecessor, “Vanity” – and stretch things out to a proggy end, but the slowed-down numbers overwhelmed. More songs such as the barn-burning version of “Slight Figure of Speech,” like an “November Blue” or “Pretty Girl from Matthews” would’ve enlivened the proceedings a bit. It’s an emotional experience to see Seth Avett stand solo and perform the heart-wrenching “Ballad of Love & Hate,” but I want to party in between crying, dammit.

Maybe it’s a riposte to the likes of Mumford or the Lumineers, who jangle their way through everything, and to prove there’s a place for legitimate musical chops. That said, ultimately, I felt sleepy, and I was bummed by that – until the encore, wherein evidently all the energy the band had been reserving the previous hour and a half came out. It was boisterous, intense, and I was fairly surprised. While there’d been glimpses throughout the set proper, this was the sustained energetic release I’d been awaiting. But then the show was over, and after getting my heart rate up and excitement going, the prior two hours seemed like they’d not been enough.

Openers Langhorne Slim & the Law are right in the Avett Brothers’ wheelhouse, if a bit more ramshackle and country. Whereas the Avetts work a folksy bluegrass, Langhorne Slim is a bit more shitkicker (albeit a kinder, gentler shitkicker). It’s halfway between Al Green soul and the honky-tonk hiccup of a ’50s rockabilly star.

Halfway through their opening number, frontman Sean Scolnick shook his head with such energy, his hat and sunglasses flew clean off. This would happen repeatedly throughout their set, as he was gripped with the passion of the moment. It was fun to watch, and the band was good, but once the idea of the band as “alt-country Lenny Kravitz” came to mind, it was all over.

Of course, it was also during their set that I was most reminded of the crass reality of the concert business, when during “Song for Sid,” a beverage hawker yelled out, “Cold beer! Ice water!” during the very quiet and emotional song about the long death of Scolnick’s grandfather, which features the refrain “Where do the great ones go when they go?” Mood: killed.

Avett Brothers setlist
Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise
Die Die Die
Shame
Distraction #74
Another Is Waiting
Down with the Shine
The Race Is On (George Jones cover)
Vanity
Kick Drum Heart
Never Been Alive
Left on Laura, Left on Lisa
Go to Sleep
Kansas City Star (Roger Miller cover)
The Ballad of Love and Hate
A Father’s First Spring
Backwards With Time
February Seven
Slight Figure of Speech
Laundry Room
Life
– –
Cluck Old Hen
Colorshow
Live and Die
The Fall
I and Love and You
Morning Song