Only once during Thursday night's sold-out show at the Kessler Theater did the crowd grow so quiet you could almost hear a wind blowing in from North Carolina, where Delta Rae is from.
The stillness arrived 13 songs into an otherwise exuberant set, when co-founder Ian Hölljes openly deplored "the amount of violence toward black Americans." The band had recently "grappled," he said, with how to write about it.
They came up with the gospel-infused "All Good People," whose lyrics tell a story:
"I watched from my window as they gunned down unarmed men/tried to say it's not my problem, couldn't happen to my friends/but the truth is, they're my brothers and they're my countrymen/and if we lose our better angels, we won't get them back again."
The band cut the demo, and the next day, Hölljes said, nine people were gunned down at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the city of Charleston in neighboring South Carolina, where a 10th victim survived.
It was a somber moment but one of many memorable interludes in a 17-song set that had the crowd standing throughout and cheering wildly for the band that hails from Durham, N.C., where the six-piece ensemble that includes three Hölljes siblings debuted at Duke University in 2009. Ian Hölljes and and his brother Eric both graduated from Duke.
On its own, Delta Rae turned in a bold and inspiring two hours, made even more so by a clever pairing with singer-songwriter Liz Longley, who served as the opening act. Longley got to know Delta Rae during a Cayamo cruise, which operates as a kind of music festival at sea. "I've never heard anything quite like them," she said this week.
Longley compares Delta Rae to "a modern-day Fleetwood Mac," albeit with an edgier mix of rock 'n' roll. The comparison became especially apt, with Delta Rae pulling a surprise in the midst of one song by exploding into an energetic cover of "Rhiannon," the Stevie Nicks-written anthem that appeared on Fleetwood Mac's self-titled debut album in 1975.
Scroll through the gallery below for more photos from the concert.
Longley, 27, is a remarkable storyteller and poignant lyricist who has reached the point where some in the audience now sing along with her, because they know the words and the songs are that personal. Some who came to see Delta Rae admitted to being pleasantly surprised by Longley, whom Julie Rowe, 58, a North Dallas housewife, knew nothing about before arriving at the Kessler. "Other than being a talented musician, and a great lyricist, you could understand every word of her songs," Rowe said, noting that such clarity is at times these days lamentably nonexistent.
Kudos to Longley for singing "Camaro," a driving rocker about a failed relationship that deftly uses an ex-boyfriend's "red-hot vintage Camaro" to sum up a torrid affair with "200,000 miles of memories." And kudos to Delta Rae for letting Elizabeth Hopkins' steamy vocals put the foot to the accelerator all night long.
