Ben Noble thanks the audience one last time before he leaves the stage, and Under The Pavilion prepares for their set. The band that follows the singer-songwriter takes the audience in a much different direction. Under The Pavilion is a 1970s/1980s influenced rock band that showed up in full force that evening. The band themselves are instrumentally solid. Every member is well accomplished on their instrument and play really catchy and fun music. Under The Pavilion's main downside is their frontman. He is a boorish, loudmouth who doesn't quite know when to be quiet. This was made abundantly clear midway through the bands set when the frontman stopped the momentum of the night to loudly say goodbye to the "acoustic guy" (Ben Noble) who was leaving due to reasons unknown. That moment, to put it lightly, put a bad taste in my mouth. It was just disrespectful to say to a fellow artist. Especially one that has quite a bit more exposure than the bands on this bill. Thankfully, Under The Pavilion finished their set and The Nokturnal North prepared to take the stage.
The band took the stage just before 10 p.m. as a duo. With Joe Norton on keys and Kiera Waskey handling vocal duties, Nokturnal North started quietly with the song "Farewell Midwest." They really worked to create a mood of the evening. Because I am not original, I can only describe their music as "happy sad." The songs are upbeat in instrumentation and composition, but the lyrics are a mixture of beauty and melancholy. During a transition between the first and second song, bassist Sam Bostrom and drummer Joel Arend took the stage as Norton switched to guitar and The Nokturnal North's set was in full swing. They played through a few more songs before stopping to speak to the audience. The vocalist thanked everyone for coming out and thanked the venue for hosting the show. Waskey mentioned that her voice was raspier than normal because she was getting over a bug. After she mentioned it, there was a smokey characteristic to her voice. It almost had the quality of a blues singer. As the band started playing again, the size of the room became apparent. The band was much louder than the previous acts and really overpowered the space. This was made worse by the fact that members of Under The Pavilion tried to improve the live mix. They just made everything louder instead of better.
The Nokturnal North was really good at mixing up their set list with old and new songs. Tracks from their debut release Farewell, Midwest had a confidence to them that wasn't always heard on the record. These songs were battle tested and captivated the audience. For the second to last song, the band played a selection from the 12-minute epic on their forthcoming record. This song was one of the best songs of the evening. I don't think anyone would have been upset if the band played the entire track because of how dynamic it was. The band built the energy and emotion from this song into the explosive final song of the night. By this point, the band was giving it their all. Norton was thrashing about the stage leaving Waskey to dodge his guitar's headstock while not falling into bassist Sam Bostrom, and drummer Joel Arend was balancing maintaining a restrained rhythm while pummeling his drumset. From there, instruments were put down in a wash of noise and the crowd was dismissed.
Setlist:
- Farewell Midwest
- You Are No Vacation / When We Were Young
- Love Letters / Hospital Halls
- The Wolves
- Unfit / Undress
- Winter Waves
- Reflections
- Wildfire / Youth
- You Destroy Me
- Funeral Pyre
- The Kids in the Neighborhood Now Sings Themselves to Sleep
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