Recap Vetiver and Jaill at High Noon Saloon

A pack of elephants could have fit comfortably into the massive, horseshoe-shaped gap between Milwaukee’s Jaill and the audience at the High Noon Saloon on Tuesday night. In other words, the audience just didn’t give a flying fuck about the garage-rockers’ stellar set of raw, revved-up power-pop. However, the indifference didn't weigh much on the four-piece's enthusiasm. The hopped-up vocal drawl of guitarist-vocalist Vinnie Kircher flew across the room as lead guitarist Ryan Adams’ twitching riffs screamed back. Meanwhile, drummer Austin Detmer pounded away at his kit, often howling the back-up lines behind Kircher. Jaill recently signed with Sub Pop Records and, according to Kircher, the new album should be out in September.

The band's set included at least three brand-new numbers—“On The Beat,” “She’s My Baby,” and “How’s The Grave”—that expand on the slightly psychedelic pop of 2009’s There's No Sky (Oh My My). The quartet closed with “The Biggest Nugget Of Them All” and made way for San Francisco folksters Vetiver.

Once guitarist-vocalist and mastermind Andy Cabic took the stage with his backing band, the audience finally started inching toward the front. The set opened with “Rolling Sea” and “Everyday,” a pair of tunes from 2009’s Tight Knit that took an unfortunate tumble down Muzak mountain. While Cabic deserves credit for not caving into faux-Dylan goose-honk vocals that plague so many new folk acts, the newer material often seemed almost too inoffensive. In fact, the whole band seemed totally stiff for the first half of the show. Cabic appeared to have his eyes closed in an effort to hide from the audience, while his backing band offered only the very slightest of head-nods, as the band tip-toed through the hushed shuffle of Michael Hurley’s “Blue Driver,” from Vetiver’s 2008 covers record Thing Of The Past.

However, right around “You May Be Blue” from 2006’s To Find Me Gone, a transformation took place. The drumming seemed livelier, the keys more colorful, and Cabic loosened up and began dancing around with his acoustic guitar. “You may be blue / But you dark my day / Throw shadows my way / Break my mind,” Cabic sang in a Paul Simon-esque tone, as the band served up a shuffling backdrop that seemed to channel the Grateful Dead.

Vetiver’s set—which unfortunately avoided the raw folk charms 2004’s Vetiver—was, like many early Tuesday-night shows at the High Noon, kept short to keep Gomeroke (The Gomers' regular and much-loved live-band karoake gig) on schedule. Cabic joked: “We have to stop in time for karaoke. After all, this isn’t about what we want. This is about you. The only song I’ve ever been good at is 'You Can Call Me Al.’ So, if the band can play it, I’ll totally sing it.” The band closed its set with “More Of This” then quickly encored with a rendition of the Grateful Dead’s “Don’t Ease Me In.” Vetiver’s recorded music seems to work the same way as his live show: The quality of both hinges on how much personality he is willing to pump into it. Thankfully, the second half of the set redeemed the first.