Writer/Photographer: Brooks Hays

For the second time in one week, I came to a concert with limited knowledge of the headlining act and left mesmerized by their performance and addicted to their tunes. Thursday night, it was Islands doing the wooing; this time, Delta Spirit was the culprit. With their recent release History From Below making serious buzz across the indie rock media machine, I was forced to take notice. And before I had much time to listen to their new record, I jumped on the opportunity to see the live version. I always find that a live performance can be the most effective way of drawing me into the music of a new band. My arrival at the 9:30 Club was just in time to catch the last few songs of Ezra Furman and The Harpoons, one of them an always welcome Daniel Johnson cover. The Harpoons played a kind of heart-on-their-sleeves alt-folk meets rockabilly that was hard to not enjoy. I’m always pleased to watch a frontman perform with an intense amount of raw emotion, energy, and vulnerability, and their frontman Ezra did not disappoint. The venue was packed in anticipation of Delta Spirit taking the stage, and the crowd went nuts for a little tease of the main course when front man Matt Vasquez took a seat at the piano, joining with Ezra and Co. for a good bluesy rock ‘n’ roll tune that got the crowd gyrating their hips. An hour and a half later, a huge banner displaying the band’s most recent album cover was hoisted behind stage, setting off a series of yelps and hollers and whistles as the crowd grew giddy with excitement, and it wasn’t long before Vasquez and his bandmates took the stage to deafening screams. Matt proceeded to praise the audience and D.C. as well as the 9:30 Club, one of the band’s favorite places to play. You might say he’s a sly dog, a veteran pandering to the crowd, but from the beginning of the show onward, you sensed a refreshing kind of honesty and palpable genuineness in their frontman, which is hard to come by in the category of rock musicians. Anyways, I knew like the band did, as the first chord was struck, and the energy in the crowd spread and intensified, tingling tangibly down the audience’s collective spine, there was no better place to be on this particular eve of the Nation’s birthday. The band arrived on stage in impeccable attire, their bassist Jon Jameson rocking the coolest of cool American Flag jackets, and lead singer Matt had the ladies shaking at the knees with the only hip Hawaiian shirt ever made, tucked in, with the sleeves rolled up like he walked straight out the the 1950′s. The band proceeded to blast the audience with bloozed-out, Swamp-infused alt-country meets indie rock, with a splash of emo-flare and a healthy dose of punk energy. It all made sense for a band that had its feet originally in the West Coast hardcore/emo scene and switched things up with a name that recalls the Deep South. But it’s not just their name, it’s their music and lyrics, too, that conjure up images of cotton fields, lynchings, and voodoo. This is Howard Zinn’s version of the slavery, war, and Reconstruction, not your momma’s Gone with the Wind telling. After playing several originals, they busted into a rousing and earnest cover of “Dixie.” Matt’s soulful rasp of a voice recalled not the struggle of the Rebel Cause at Chancellorsville but the Civil Rights clashes of Birmingham and elsewhere. Transitioning “Dixie” into a gospel-like version of Daniel S. Warner “The Truth Is Marching On,” the band solidified my suspicion that this could be one of my favorite concert experiences to date. I think the audience would agree with my sentiments when I say the best song followed this outstanding series of events: Matt banging on the piano and belting out a jump-and-jivin’ “Trashcan” off Ode To Sunshine (percussionist and utility player Kelly Winrich beating rhythmically on the lid of trash can for irony’s sake). Other highlights of the show: the outstanding percussion on “Before the Devil Knows Your Dead,” an aptly timed “Star Spangled Banner solo” that Jimi Hendrix would have been proud of, and a tease of Nirvana’s “About A Girl” (one of my favorite songs of all time). And I can’t forget to thank Matt and Delta Spirit immensely for being the only artists to ever humor the “Free Bird” request, without indignation or annoyance. It would have been incredibly difficult to top a night like this off appropriately, but of course Vasquez brought a selflessness and dedication to the crowd that I’ve never before witnessed and knew just how to go out with a bang. Microphone in hand, he made his way into the middle of the audience and slowly brought the crowd to their knees with the “A little bit softer now” of “Shout.” Matt and company could have easily passed for Otis Day and the Knights. Just as quickly as he’d quelled the crowd into a crouched slumber, he woke all of U Street up as he brought down the house with “A little bit louder now,” screaming it over and over until he and the entire room was exhausted. The band exited, and Matt left with an a cappella version of Queen’s “We Are the Champions” to a thunderous ovation. The only boos heard all night happened when the 9:30 Club turned on its own tunes, cuing the crowd to funnel through the exits. Disappointment that the show was over but still reeling in jubilation of a truly great rock n roll band. It was a night I won’t soon forget.