Early in their first set of tunes on Thursday night inside the Majestic Theatre, renowned roots duo Gillian Welch and David Rawlings performed "I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll." Over a lilting, lullaby-like acoustic arrangement the duo sang in the chorus, "I want to sing that rock and roll, I want to electrify my soul."
On the surface, the words and the music don't match up. The slow, soft style of the tune, or much of Welch's catalog for that matter, doesn't jibe with the rowdiness one expects in order for a soul to be properly electrified. But no one in the ornate 97-year-old theater needed any further jolting to be convinced, thanks to the brilliance Welch and Rawlings had already displayed to start off the night.
Armed with only two acoustic guitars, a banjo and a harmonica, the couple, who met while attending Boston's Berklee College of Music in the early '90s, made their sparse stage setup feel as epic as a Pink Floyd laser light show with Dinosaur Jr.'s ear-blasting speaker stacks. In the evening's first song, "Scarlett Town" from 2011's Grammy-nominated the Harrow and the Harvest LP, Rawlings wasted no time in adding his guitar wizard flair, imbuing the song with a quickened pulse and giving it a life unique to that of its recorded counterpart.
Just as B.B. King's semi-hollow body Les Paul, "Lucille", or Stevie Ray Vaughan's Stratocaster, Rawlings' 1935 Epiphone Olympic Archtop guitar is his personal tool used to carve his signature on each song. In the middle of most of the concert's songs, Rawlings would gently gyrate in unison with his nimble fingers for guitar solos that elicited hearty applause time and time again. Just as Wilco's guitar maestro Nels Cline, or Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello have long done, Rawlings seems to jump into a song, borrow it for a thrilling joyride and return it in pristine condition, just in the nick of time.
Welch's oft-ghostly, melodically moaning vocals are every bit as vital to the duo's catalog as any instrument is. Whether it was meandering, dark tales like "Ruination Day, Part II" or the murder ballad "Caleb Myer," or an upbeat knee-slapper like "Red Clay Halo," Welch's voice slides into the right mode at every turn, transforming songs into full-blown stories. Welch could've sung fan-favorite "Elvis Presley Blues" a cappella and it would be every bit as impactful as it has been for so many years now.
With minimal instrumentation to bolster the sound, Welch and Rawlings employed perfectly placed harmonies to add heft in ways that never betrayed a song's delicacy. During "Tennessee," the up-tempo "The Way it Goes," and "Down Along the Dixie Line" the pair's rustic harmonies didn't soar as much as they hovered the way a moody morning fog over a tree-lined creek might.
They broke out the banjo for a few songs, including 1998's "Rock of Ages," and 2011's "Hard Times." The harmonica came out during "Wayside/Back in Time," and in the case of both the banjo and harmonica, the sounds were rustic and felt grittier than Rawlings' guitar or Welch's singing in a way that lent the tunes a front porch ease not easily matched in such a grand theater space.
The highlight of the regular set was where the duo made the most of all resources available to them in the galloping "Six White Horses." As Rawlings picked at the banjo and blew into the harmonica strapped around his neck, Welch slapped her thighs rhythmically and stepped aside for a quick boot-stomping jig. For this song, they shared a microphone, upping the stark intimacy of the performance even more.
The two encores, featuring five songs in total, brought to light everything that makes this partnership so great. "Look at Miss Ohio" is arguably Welch's greatest story with her greatest sing-along chorus in "I want to do right, but not right now." Covers of Neil Young's "Pocahontas" and Townes Van Zandt's "White Freightliner" divulged their appreciation for the rocking, rebellious giants of the recent past while the show-closing hymn "I'll Fly Away," which Welch sang on the iconic, Grammy-winning O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack, hammered home their reverence for the rural tradition that has helped bring them to this point in time.
After the second song of the night, Welch joked that her night wasn't going so well, thanks to " a dress that won't hang right and frizzy hair" but that she hoped they "would make up for it" as the night went along. Just as her style of folk music can sound quiet while packing a serious, rocking punch, it's safe to say she more than made up for it, not that anyone present expected anything less.
