I was so incredibly excited for the show at Edgefield last week, and I was fortunate in that I had also made such a point to catch his set at Newport Folk Festival (another post on that!). I just had to make up for the pop up show at Topaz Farm last year that I had to miss because I had covid. I was not missing GAI in town this year!

I’ve been listening to his latest release Appaloosa Bones regularly to familiarize myself with the newest songs, and I’m so glad I did, as he played quite a few.

There’s a beautiful rich melodic melancholy to Gregory Alan Isakov, and one that his is very well aware of; after opening with “San Luis” and “Before the Sun”, he remarked that he could have picked some happier songs to start the show. To then continue on with “Mistakes”, “Dark, Dark, Dark”, “The Fall”, the wistful tunes continued.

As I looked around the crowd, melancholy, wistful lyrics continued, the crowd was seated and attentive, something that is hard to come by these days for other artists; but GAI, had them mesmerized. The wildire smoke that wafted over from fires in Washington, only added to the moody beauty of McMenamins Edgefield, with its tall pines shrouded in a haze from the orange glazed sun. The perfect backdrop for a meditative setlist for GAI.

Setlist highlights included:

“San Luis”
”Dark, Dark, Dark”
”The Fall”
”Big Black Car”
”Watchman”
”Appaloosa Bones”

photos by Julia Varga