Band of Horses Live at The Paradise
Friday September 8th





For one of the most blogged about and critically acclaimed bands of the year Band of Horses first show in Boston was greeted with great expectation.

Ben Birdwell is now the only original member after the recent departure of Mat Brooke. So after associating those two men as the creative force that turned out the stunning debut album Everything All The Time. I was wondering if the performance would suffer at all from the line-up change and those high expectations.

The band hit The Paradise stage at 11:30 to clapping hands of a sold out crowd. As the other members took there positions on stage Birdwell took his seat in front of his lap Steel rig and with a quick greeting he took the band into Monsters. This is a building track on the album but Live it's epic. The set drew almost entirely from the debut album with three new tracks as well as few well chosen covers. The one issue that band had was soundman related during the first 3 or 4 songs the vocals would often get buried in the mix or the vocals were just too loud. However this never distracted from the bands grasp on the audience. In fact about midset the band really settled into a nice groove and unveiled some solid new tracks as well as an off kilter bluesy cover of ELO's Showdown and some of Everything's best tracks like Our Swords witch just paired down the band to Birdwell on Bass and drummer Creighton Barrett as well as their indie hit The Funeral.

For a band that only has 36 minutes of recorded output Band of Horses not only lived up to the buzz they surpassed it with a memorable mix of new tracks,covers, and material from there debut album. I don't think I've read a review of this band where My Morning Jacket and The Shins don't get mentioned. I won't deny the similarities to both those bands but with there set at The Paradise Friday night Band of Horses proved that they're a breed all there own.