CONCERT REVIEW: Keller Williams – Nokia Theatre, NYC

By Zac Bardou

When I first saw Keller Williams play in 1998, he had jammed himself into the claustrophobic and dimly lit corner of a West End pizzeria in Richmond, VA. with a couple of guitars and a tiny soundboard. On March 2, nine years later, the stage at the Nokia Theatre in Times Square was considerably less cramped and the old axes had a lot more company.

There were eight guitars on stage, including a twelve-string, three basses, and an eight-string snub-stem with five guitar strings and three bass strings. A lily pad-like drum machine, a Theremin, an armory of assorted noisemakers, a synthesizer and even a MalletKat electronic vibraphone joined the tiny soundboard that had itself ballooned in size and sprouted many new pedals.

There was a time that, in spite of masterful musicianship and innovative flair, Keller Williams’ loop-heavy one-man show might have been dismissed by some as a gimmicky novelty act. Now however, even before Williams took the stage, the musical instrument menagerie that sprawled across it provided a profound reminder of just how far this one-man show has come.

Keller Williams weaves together sets that comprise contemporary and classic covers, the fruits of numerous collaborations and, of course, songs picked from his own vast catalogue, ranging from the playfully comedic or whimsical, to the percussively dense and ambitious. Employing a litany of looping devices, he builds his folk-hop performances layer by layer, piling bass lines, beatbox, and synthesizer grooves on top of the relentless rhythms of an electronic drum machine, before adding his sometimes serpentine and often almost whispered vocals and the trademark sound of an acoustic guitar seemingly played by six men at once.

During his first set, Williams flitted around the stage, picking up and playing about fifteen different instruments. His intricate loops were punctuated by all manner of noisemakers, including a cow bell, a triangle, spoons and even plastic tubes of varying lengths that, when beaten over the thighs, produce different pitches of percussion. During the catchy camp of “Rainy Day,” he used nothing more than his own mouth to produce an uncanny simulation of a trumpet solo.

The set was anchored by three exceptional covers, culled from three very different musical periods and genres; The Butthole Surfers’ “Pepper,” took on an almost old-western sensibility, infused with looped acoustic harmonics and Williams’ range-worthy whistling, while the Grateful Dead’s “Shakedown Street,” provided one of the most exploratory and boogie-inducing grooves of the evening.

Williams’ third cover, the Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House,” very nearly did just that, building and finally climaxing in a shower of reverberating guitar shards that throbbed in the stifling air while setting the throng a-stomp, providing a perfect end to the set.

The second set featured some of Williams’ finest comical material. He offered up a shout out to Times Square during “Love Handles” and was joined by his soundboard man on an actual brass trumpet during an irony-rich “Novelty Song.” The stage lights were quenched while a spotlight captured the brief guest appearance halfway to the back of the room behind the soundboard.

The crowd rowdily joined Williams in singing “Mary Jane’s Last Breakdown,” a two-song Tom Petty medley that sandwiched a bit of “Breakdown” between two halves of “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” The rollicking bluegrass arrangement appeared originally on Grass, an album Williams made with flat picker Larry Keel and upright bassist Jenny Keel.

The second set ended with the original classic “Vacate,” during which Williams flaunted not only his dexterity as a guitarist, but also his undeniable ability to make music by flicking his lips with his fingers, a dichotomy that summed up the evening perfectly.

Williams returned to the stage to encore with a well-received “Celebrate Your Youth,” and the ecstatic crowd’s fervor mounted to a final wild dance before the world’s greatest one-man band left the stage for the final time. All that remained were the instruments and the unshakable impression that their numbers, along with Keller William’s fame and recognition, would only continue to grow.