by Roy Scopazzi
I don’t think it’ll be too much of a surprise to say that a lot of people there were for dirt man.
I say that because he straight up asked the audience if they were here mostly for dirt man, and at least half the people there raised their hands. I can’t exactly call Carter Vail a “One Hit Wonder” but his fame comes primarily from the songs he’s dropped the past few years, each under a minute. One of those being the little ditty about a man that collects dirt and brings people to his lair just so happened to end up collecting a pretty packed crowd at The Independent.
His first foray into longer form songs came the year before in the form of 100 Cowboys and it was a perfect blend of his musical stylings and humor while never being too silly. You wouldn’t mistake this for a comedy album as it deals with pretty serious subjects but maintains a level of levity throughout. This led to the setlist being a good weave of his longer songs along with a sprinkling of his shorts. He would often start a short only to have it seamlessly transition into a song off of the album or a cover. The only exception was Dirt Man, which he performed twice in a row, the second time at a much higher tempo, to much fanfare. Surprisingly he didn’t use it as either of the encore songs, but it did come near the end. These shorter songs seemed to get the most audience reaction, but you can tell they took a backseat to the songs on the album.
The only time he really slowed it down was Tigers and Trains, which was requested near the beginning of the show but was the second to last song before the encore. He even said it was a weird place to play it but bringing down the the tempo was nice before the last few songs. It also was a huge crowd favorite, and not just to the people who asked for it.
I’ll be real, I was also there because of the shorts (specifically The Ballad of Tommy and Joey) but I was extremely glad this wasn’t a greatest hits of Youtube shorts but a bonified extremely well put together concert that still had the energy of those shorts. Bravo.
Starting off the show was Slow Coast who were able to bring a solid amount of energy and pizzazz to get the crowd going with their own fun blend of indie rock and pop. Def worth seeing on their own if they ever come around.
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