Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors with Jill Andrews @ The Sinclair 4/8

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors with Jill Andrews – The Sinclair 4/8

Friday night, a pretty chilly night in April, but this is Boston. Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, an Americana band from Tennessee, is playing at The Sinclair, and there I am. After meeting up with photographer Jon Polen, a little mix-up at the door with the tickets and the photo pass, we fina lly made our way inside.

The show was sold out, so the room was packed. And after a brief announcement about the fire exits, opener Jill Andrews took the stage sporting a baby bump with her black dress and cowgirl boots. She played a couple of songs solo, then guitarist Julie Melucci came out and assisted her with some really impressive electric guitar work. The songs were country-ish folk in nature. She played songs off her newest record The War Inside, like “Sweet Troubled Man.” Later she played “Blue Eyes,” a song about her seven-year-old son, and talked about having “another one on the way.”

After Andrews, Drew Holcomb and his band The Neighbors took the stage. Holcomb and several of the band members had on old-timey hats with their suit jackets. The band launched right into the music without so much as a hello, letting the music speak for itself. Guitarist Nathan Dugger took a killer solo on the song “Avalanche,” blowing the audience, including myself, away. For the song “Ain’t Nobody Got It Easy,” the drummer and keyboardist left the stage. The three remaining men on stage stood around a single microphone with acoustic guitars and played. Holcomb later played “Fire And Dynamite” by himself.

Holcomb then told the audience how his brother moved to Rwanda, and then made a pitch for the humanitarian aid group World Vision, trying to get the word out through musicians. They had a spot set up at the merch table.

For the last song of the set, before the encore of course, everyone took a small solo. The three guitarists, Holcomb included, then did a little choreographed swaying to the music. The encore consisted of the band’s “What Would I Do Without You,” a song featured in an episode of How I Met Your Mother. It was a fitting end to a good show.

By Evan Frye

Pictures taken by Jonathan Polen