Recap John Vanderslice at High Noon Saloon

Across his seven albums, 42-year-old songwriter John Vanderslice has proven equally consistent and safe, but rarely surprising. So while he may not have swung onto the stage of the High Noon Saloon on a giant vine and wearing a codpiece, the Florida-born songster and his backing band certainly did justice to his earnest pop tunes on Friday night with a passionately tight display. Decider just a in time to hear some massive praise for opener The Tallest Man On Earth, but unfortunately he'd just wrapped up his set. Once the mop-haired Vanderslice hit the stage, however, people clammed up and listened as he slammed into an eerie, electrified rendition of “Tablespoon Of Codeine.”

The ghostly wobble of keyboardist Ian Bjornstad’s Moog intertwined with the buzzing distortion of Vanderslice’s guitar to make “Tablespoon Of Codeine” seem more haunting than ever. The quintet tunneled forward with the soaring vibrato of “Too Much Time,” the Wurlitzer-driven “White Plains,” and the swelling crawl of “Trance Manual.” After “When It Hits My Blood,” a tune in which the lyrics seem to take direct influence from the movie Requiem For A Dream, the backing band walked offstage, leaving Vanderslice alone with his acoustic guitar for possibly the finest moment of the evening: a heart-clenching rendition of “Romanian Names.” “When you fell off the balance beam you couldn’t win / but you jumped up again / still wide-eyed you go,” he crooned, as select crowd members mouthed along. The set sprawled evenly across Vanderslice’s back catalog, yanking several numbers from his new album, Romanian Names.

Before running into set-closer “They Won’t Let Me Run,” Vanderslice asked audience members where he and the band could get good pancakes in the morning and whether or not they would like to join him. He also promised an after-show dance party, which would include a ridiculous rap song created for and about him by drummer Matthias Bossi and guitarist Sylvain Carton. After the tremendous response to “They Won’t Let Me Run,” Vanderslice decided to treat the audience to a charming ode to home recording entitled “Me And My 424,” before heading over to his merch booth to chat with his fans. Sure, there may not have been much eccentricity on display, but Vanderslice makes up for it by keeping his passion and sincerity from drowning in indie rock's rising sea of irony.