It still kind of blows my mind that Joe Pug can play a place as small as The Middle East Upstairs and not have the room bursting at the seams. Don't get me wrong, there wasn't a whole lot of room for dancing or anything; I just always expect Pug's shows to be a lot more crowded. With all the candor and charm we've become accustom to seeing from the young troubadour, he and his band wound their way through songs that had the crowd singing along and stomping their feet quite deftly (despite some of the audience being of the mind to party since 10 AM that morning. Thank you, Patriots Day!) In a showing of the kind of attitude that has had Pug giving away free downloads of his songs, doing his own no-fee ticketing for his shows and sending CDs to anyone who asks for one on his dime, Pug gave the first song of the encore to his opener — Strand of Oaks.
Strand of Oaks (a/k/a Tim Showalter), touring in support of his second release Pope Killdragon, at first seemed a bit of a mismatch with Pug as he played his moody goth-folk. However, a few quick words with the audience made it pretty obvious why the two were fit to hit the road together. Despite showing as much country charm as his touring partner, the consensus among my cohorts was that we were left wishing we liked the music as much as we liked the man himself.
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