Little Lies and Massive Dreams

My name is Bear. I play in a band called Talking About Commas and live and work in Providence, RI. I like music.
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Oct 29, 2007

Sean Hayes and Jenny Owen Youngs: Folk the Paradise



The Paradise Lounge is a small café style venue adjacent to the famous Paradise Rock Club in Boston. Last Friday I went to an evening performance by acoustic-pop starlet Jenny Owen Youngs with a supporting set by grizzled indie-folk veteran, Sean Hayes. Yeah, that’s right HE was the supporting act.

Youngs seems to be having the ride of her life, traveling around playing her brand of pessimistic but pretty pop with friends since college (her band formed while they were sociology majors at NYU). She seems like one of the boys, not afraid to rag on her single drummer or put down the audience for not liking Harry Potter (which was actually quite annoying, she wouldn’t drop it the whole show) and yelling “Fuck You ” to another audience member who requested “Hot in Herre” (Yes she does a folk version of the Nelly song, almost as lame as the Gourds “Gin and Juice”) while she was discreetly introducing that very song, but sings like one of the girls (hows that for a run-on, Fuck You ). Her piercing voice and bouncy acoustic feel mask the pain and self-loathing often found in her lyrics. Songs like “Drinking Song” and “Fuck Was I?” relay the sentiment that she is often not taken as seriously as she’d like and is typically type-cast in her real life. Jenny definitely came out of the gate hot, but she has a lot more writing to do if she wants her career to last. She barely had enough material to make it through an hour long set and didn’t even do an encore.

Sean Hayes and his trio opened the show hitting the stage at 5:59, I told you it was an evening show. I got turned on to Hayes when a friend of mine gave me a mix cd of his songs over a year ago. I immediately took to this guy and his unique voice and lyrical genius. He can give you the simple lyrics as well as rich, cryptic descriptions of all of life’s facets. Hayes is a veteran of the folk circuit, with over 5 albums to his credit, and it’s refreshing to see he is just happy to be playing his music to anyone who will listen. Hayes’ set was culled mostly from his last 2 albums but he through in a couple older tunes such as “Mary Magdalene” which he claimed to be the first song he ever wrote (that was worth recording) and the audience requested “Smoking Signals” which he taught to his band as they played it. The best quip of the night was when Hayes said he was relieved that a World Series game was not being played that night because he was afraid no one would be at the gig. He told the crowd “Last time I was here (in Boston), the Patriots were in the Super Bowl and only 5 people showed up to the gig!”. Maybe he should come back sometime in early February, he seems to bring his good luck wherever he goes...


Sean Hayes’ set: Time, Politics, Mary Magdalene, Rattlesnake Charm (Dream Machine), Onion, 3am, Feel Good, Fucked Me Right Up, All For Love, Smoking Signals, Guantanamo, Big Black Hole and the Little Baby Star


Jenny Owen Youngs’ set: Coyote, Drinking Song, Tell them Whatever You Want*, Voice on Tape, Porchrail, Woodcut, From Here, Fuck Was I, PS, If I Didn’t Know*, Secrets up to Here*, Hot in Herre**
* not sure of title so I guessed. ** w/ "Wonderwall" (Oasis) teases

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