So, last night, Carbon Leaf returned to the Higher Ground for another amazing show. Despite the winter weather advisory, they pulled in a full house. They were fronted by the Adam Ezra Group, whom I had never heard of, but was quite impressed by. 
Adam Ezra Grou Set List
1 Opening (Missed this one)
2 Gave Into Pressure
3 Nightly Gesture, I Call You
4 All Band Drum Solo
5 Say I'm not the Only One
6 Small Town City
7 Don't Shine the Light on my System Mama
8 Back on the Road Tonight
9 We All Try Do or Die
10 Wagon Wheel (Old Crow Medicine Show)
11 You Can Tell A Lot About A Man
Unfortunently, I don't know what the song titles are for the songs - these are snippits of the lyrics (except for Wagon Wheel and Small Town City).
I was pretty impressed by these guys. If you liked Dispatch or Blues Traveller, The Adam Ezra Group will probably suit you. They've got a cool drum lineup, as well as a fun, energetic sound. These guys looked like they were having a lot of fun on stage, and Adam seemed to never stop, either running around the stage or through the crowd at one point.
I was most impressed by several songs, most notably Small Town City, which really stood out from their setlist - this marked a refined and passionate song with some good songwriting here. Their sound overall is fairly unrefined, raw, and I imagine that they'll be working over the next couple years to something even better. But as a beginning, these guys are someone to keep an eye on. I'll be highlighting them in more detail later.
I got to speak with Adam after the show - nice guy, really enthusiastic about music and interested in the blog and everything surrounding that. Hopefully, I'll get around to seeing them again next week when they play at Nectar's.
Carbon Leaf Setlist
1 Wolftrap and Fireflies
2 Another Man's Woman (New Song)
3 Toy Soldiers
4 Let Your Troubles Roll By
5 Texas Stars
6 For The 1st Time (New Song)
7 One Prairie Outpost
8 Life Less Ordinary
9 Attica's Flowerbox Window
10 For Your Violin
11 The Boxer
12 Paloma
13 When I'm Alone
14 War Was In Color
15 Meltdown (New Song)
16 Come Together
Encore
17 Favorite Things Jam (By the Christmas Power Trio)
18 What Child Is This
19 What About Everything
Now, Carbon Leaf. I am continually amazed at how they'll change up their shows a bit. This show featured a bunch of new songs - Another Man's Woman, For the 1st Time and Meltdown. The best of these was Meltdown, which really blew me away.
Once again, the guys pulled out all the energy for this show - they really did a fantastic set, with a lot of new and some really old stuff that I've never heard live before (Toy Soldiers!). I'm not sure this is the best concert that I've heard from them, but it's certainly one of the better ones.
One thing that impressed me the most, more than other shows, was Carter's Guitarwork for this show. Completely off the hook and leaps and bounds above what I've ever heard before. There were a bunch of really cool solos here, and I'm really hoping that some of them will make their way onto Archive.org. I know the Boston Show will be making it's way up there sometime soon, and I have another recent show that I'll be pulling some new songs off of. I finally got to speak with Terry and Barry - guys, if you read this, it was an absolute pleasure to see you guys again. Next time you're up in Vermont, I've got a round of drinks for you.
Small Town City - Adam Ezra Group
The Boxer - Carbon Leaf
For more pictures from the concert, click here.
Hype - Buy
