Evening with Avetts tour de force in NLR

The Avett Brothers seemed right at home at the spacious Verizon Arena in North Little Rock Friday night, as the North Carolina band revealed what a banjo could do for rock ‘n’ roll, especially when combined with a guitar, a cello and a bass. And throw in drums, keyboards and piano and you really have a show.

And what a show it was, as good as anything I have seen in Verizon Arena, for sure.

“Remarkable” would be a good word to describe the concert, which can stand along some of the best I have ever seen, including Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Supertramp and the Grateful Dead. Scott and Seth Avett have been building a career for a decade, and they certainly know what they are doing, both vocally and instrumentally, along with pacing, energy and whatever else there is.

There were 2,676 fans, packed into the lower bowl and the floor, as the band bounced on the stage and loped out onto the runway at times to drive the crowd into a further frenzy. Scott Avett on banjo and Seth Avett on guitar, augmented by standup bassist Bob Crawford and stand-up cellist Joe Kwon, moved around and about the stage almost as if they had choreographed their songs at times. A drummer and a keyboardist were occasionally called on to add to the glorious spectacle.

Then there were the moments when both Avetts played dueling electric guitars as if they were Allman brothers, or when Scott Avett went to the riser and played an upright piano. But the banjo was surely the instrument that fans had come to see, and it was intriguing to watch the adoration directed to an instrument that has long been the butt of jokes, perhaps as many as the accordion.

Drawing from their month-old album, Magpie and the Dandelion, the Avetts poured it on for some two hours and 15 minutes before calling a halt, surely from exhaustion. Highlights were “Open-Ended Life,” “Souls Like the Wheels,” “Vanity” and “Morning Song,” among the extensive set list.

Refreshingly, The Avett Brothers had enough confidence in their abilities to offer fans the “Evening With…” approach, omitting the usually obligatory one or more opening acts, designed to fill up time. The time was filled up, and more, by the Avetts. The time will come when this band comes a bit closer to filling the arena, I suspect.