Red Clay Strays, The Revivalists, and Haley Reinhart

It’s not every day that you see a mainstream 7-piece jam band complete with trumpet and saxophone hit the road, but similar to the likes of Moon Taxi and The Wild Feathers, the New Orleans based Revivalists deliver the enthusiastic twang of a southern alt rock band playing with a genuine and undeniably innate sense of rhythm.

For such a big outfit, the guys are close yet comfortable on stage, each ingratiating himself inconspicuously before coming together as a group both mentally and musically for the drop. Vocalist David Shaw’s rough yet rich delivery is at times reminiscent of Ray LaMontage’s husky but passionate tone (especially when he’s stripped down with only a guitar). Shaw not only genuinely inflects his commitment to the song using his powerful voice, but also through his onstage presence, fumblingly calculatedly around onstage while continuously encouraging the crowd and interacting with the front row die-hards.

The unrelenting saxophone, along with the trumpet, pierce the melody, adding to the highly energetic and involving performance; it’s exactly what you’d expect from a 7-piece jam band.

With an EP and two albums under their belt, including a 2014 re-release of the two-disc City of Sound, The Revivalists offer a grand, one-of-a-kind musical experience, continuously touring North America with the entire band in tow.

The sound set up was horrible, it was way too loud and you could feel a strong distortion when the bass was playing. The sound of the band was so loud that you couldn’t enjoy Haley’s voice or even understand what she was singing

The accommodation was detestable, except for 15 high stools at the balcony, the only chairs available were far from any place where you can see the artist, I believe this was the wrong venue for this show specially because Haley is known for her vintage covers which a lot of old people like, so of course the place had many seniors that couldn’t enjoy the show at all, I saw several of them leaving 3 or 4 songs before the show was over.

As much as I like Haley I have to say that I am very disappointed at her too, I liked her for how mellow her voice is, the way she handles that rasp and the ability to connect to people without going too high with her voice, however it seems like she decided to follow the “rock star” path with a loud band and a rocker tone, the way I see it she is losing money, she would be better off with only one instrument (piano or guitar), but she obviously has the right to choose whatever path she wants, however if this is her choice I am not going to follow her any more.