#dustin johnsen

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Whitehorse + Dustin Johnsen at Doug Fir

Overall

Tuesday night. Haven’t seen the Doug Fir this empty before.
Do not order a glass of red wine at Doug Fir. Ever. Stick to the hard stuff or beer.

Dustin Johnsen

Very quiet, soothing acoustic Portland based singer/songwriter.
It’s the kind of music that is in the background while you quietly catch up with your friends. So that’s what we did.

Whitehorse

Husband and wife duo Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland didn’t disappoint. We were sitting at the bar and after one song we were drawn to finish our drinks and head to the stage. They have fantastic voices.
There were a lot of M. Ward-esque moments.
Doucet talked about Elliot Smith’s influence on his songwriting and gave some props to Portland.
Definitely a lot of cords on stage to connect all those pedals, a stomping board and the array of microphones which includes old telephone receivers. We both fell in love with the great sound of their voices in the old telephone receivers.
There was a lot of looping going on and we appreciate that. It definitely made the performance interesting and kept us guessing. We really liked that it was hard to predict what part of the song they would play live over the loops. For example, in one song they looped the guitars, vocals etc and ended the song by both playing a drum.
They didn’t do the looping thing the entire show, they spent time just the two of them in the front of the stage in a permanent fret bone* playing some great songs, including a fantastic cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire.”
The crowd was so small that people were sitting on the stairs to watch. Their music has a lot of energy so it’s gotta be hard to play for a crowd like that.
We’d love to see this band opening for someone like Wilco or Ryan Adams. Or maybe Band of Horses it a better fit considering their name… Either way we want to see what they can do with a full band including drummer, bass player etc.

In Conclusion

We give this show 5 stars. One star for the stomp board. One star for excellent chemistry. Two stars for fret bone. One star for old telephone receiver microphones.

*Fret bone: when two guitarists play facing each other, instruments only inches apart. Usually includes jamming or face melting.

xoxo A + C

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