Roadkill Ghost Choir started the show, while The White Buffalo‘s music stampeded through the remainder of the night.
Roadkill Ghost Choir’s gone coast to coast! Hailing from Florida, the alternative rock band’s performance at The Observatory North Park was one I would love to see again. Groovy, synth-heavy, and dreamy; they had me moving to the music. All in all, it was a far better opener than I had anticipated, leaving me excited to see what The White Buffalo would bring to the stage.
Even after two months of traveling on their Darkest Darks, Lightest Lights album tour, The White Buffalo’s folk-rock style was rock solid. With a whopping 21 song set, their music managed to keep the audience’s attention and applause coming. Thankfully, the band knew just when to change up the mood, from the light-hearted and fast-paced, to more serious, slower songs. A stand out moment: front man Jake Smith stating his intention to play “’Observatory,’ at the Observatory.” This got a lot of laughs from the audience.
Especially noteworthy was drummer Matt “The Machine” Lynott’s performance on the drums. From his initial strut on stage, where he took off the big black tarp in the middle of my field of view to reveal his kit, to the pounding beats and fills throughout his time on stage, he had a drum nerd like me enthralled. Plus, he added to the sense that the music was truly stampeding its way through the crowd.
While Roadkill Ghost Choir has pedals and synthesizers which add extra dimensions to their sounds, The White Buffalo inversely stripped their music of the bells and whistles of modern music and played nearly barebones (guitar, bass and drums). In the end however, their differences don’t matter, as the pairing complemented each other into one overall great experience.