New Year At Last: The Avett Brothers In Concert

The following is best read in the voice of Owen Wilson. I have stylized this article as a piece of fan fiction that might or might not exist in an alternate timeline. The timeline of the French Dispatch where Owen Wilson’s character comes to Greensboro, NC to watch the Avett Brothers. Looking to capture the energy of the city, he finds much more as to why the Avett Brothers could sell out the Greensboro Coliseum.

Greensboro is a peculiar place. The city boasts a claim to being the jean capital of the world, the spark to the Civil Rights movement, a folk Mecca, and home to one of the biggest fan bases in the WWE. However, nestled in between industrialization, modernization, man buns, and leotards lives a city that never took COVID-19 seriously, invented the different shades of red in bureaucratic red-tape, is filled with absurdist characters like those in a Hiro Murai limited series, and is colloquially named ‘the Dirty Boro’ due to the copious amounts of trash everywhere you look. When Obi wan Kenobi regarded, “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,” you’d question if you were looking at Greensboro.

Despite the corrupt nature of Greensboro, I wanted to ring in the New Year with a bang. Why should one not buy tickets to a great indie-folk with hints of Christian rock band in a folk Mecca? But, in the one defining act of a COVID-protocol, the Avett Brothers decided to postpone their New Year concert. It was devastating. But the night and the musicianship of the Avett Brothers would prevail. And, after finally seeing the concert, my hope is that a new year, long rid of a receding COVID, may finally start.

The band did nothing short of rock. Unplugged and unafraid, the audience fed the drive of the eclectic energy that only two peculiar brothers can provide. My father always told me that the true mark of a great performance and artist is if they can capture the attention of a small bar. If they can do that, large crowds and success are nothing. This might be why everyone wants to see the Avett Brothers. Underneath all of the accolades is a group that probably never cared about them in the first place. And maybe this is why their performances are always so special.

The theater of the evening was the stomp and holler aspect of the dynamic dancing brothers, the lights complimenting the attitude of the songs, and the energy of the eclectically obtuse crowd of strangers that find their home in the folk Mecca of Greensboro. A crowd not expecting much, maybe the same as myself, yet was thrilled to see good music with good energy alive onstage for the first time in what feels like a long time. If you know the band, all the singles you know and love were beautifully orchestrated with a vibrant energy that arguably only the Avett Brothers can pull off.

Image courtesy iHeartRadio

My only qualm with the concert was that Seth Avett (pictured right) braided his hair and looked like a McPoyle family member. But, maybe that is the charm of the band itself. That weird americana anthems can be reborn, live, and prosper from some of the most unlikely of people in the most unlikely of places.

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- Botts