Saturday, June 25, 2011 ; Brandon Caulfield Live Review
Live From The Ambassador Auditorium, Pasadena, California, USA

As I arrived at the venue, I have to admit I was unsure as to what to expect, my knowledge of Mr. Caulfield was rather minimal, of course I was aware of him being selected to front the legendary rockers The Bards for a limited period recently, but as a solo artist … well to be frank, I had no idea, I had heard stories that he was a little too intense as a live performer and that his shows had way too much focus on emotion and feeling, I personally believe that a concert should be fun and enjoyable and have the ability to make you smile, but the fact that this guy seemingly wants his audience to leave with tears in their eyes had me feeling very sceptical. However I was pleasantly surprised by his buoyant nature.

The man stepped out onstage with an acoustic guitar, and the place went pretty silent as he made his way over to the microphone stand at the centre of the stage, you could hear a pin drop in the audience and I was pretty certain that we were in for an emotional rollercoaster, that is until a guy from the back of the venue shouted, “How’s It Going, Brandon?.” to which end the singer looked into the direction the voice came from and smiled, he whispered with a tinge of humour, “Come on dude, don’t make me more nervous.” the audience started chuckling in small ripples before Caulfield began to play his guitar, he launched himself into a highly energetic rendition of his own, Patience And Grace which is quickly followed by a slower and more emotional rendition of Until Your Nothing which laments the loss of a close friend.

He paused briefly to introduce the next song, “You know you in for a tough night when you go through your list of songs and find a depressing mix of losing love, feeling pain and losing a child … This is Into The Wild.” He performs the song with an unexpected feeling of humour and joy as he quickly powers through two more songs in quick succession with the love instead of war anthem Busking On The Gaza Strip and slightly uplifting, The Sky Is The Limit. As he finishes the song, he takes a quick drink of water and pauses before introducing the next song.

“Are you guys enjoying yourselves so far?” he pauses as the crowd cheer and as the cheers die down, one solitary voice is heard, “I love you man” Brandon laughs and says, “Thanks man, I like you.” he pauses briefly and then continues, “But only as a friend.” the audience laugh and he introduces the next song. “I wrote this song a couple of days ago so please bare with me, It’s called, Bedouins And Fireflies.” the crowd cheer at the thought of hearing a new song before anybody else and it gets a pretty good reaction, it’s a lot more rock influenced than some of his previous stuff but it’s lyrics are full of bizarre phrasings and words which shouldn’t ordinarily fit into a song.

The next three songs, Footprints Of My Soul, A Whiskey And A Smile and Follow My Ghost, were much more softer and emotional, Caulfield showed exactly why he has a reputation and it’s pretty clear that his talent is just being very quiet and sad. However those songs were a treat as they tugged at our heartstrings, but a whole show full of those kind of songs would be a little too much emotion to deal with but he has managed to mix the sad emotional songs well with more of a joyous and entertaining performance than I would have expected.

His final two songs were quite surprisingly, cover versions. First up Bob Dylan’s song about allowing your love to leave you, Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, quickly followed by Ben E. King’s classic love song, Stand By Me. The audience seemed to enjoy it however unexpected it was to hear those songs included in the Setlist. As those songs finish, Caulfield thanks the audience and takes a bow, before leaving the stage, the crowd cheered and hollered until the man returned, he thanked the audience once more. “Thank you, I’m not so used to encore’s. So here we go.”

He played three final songs for us, All of which appeared on his second record, Into The Wild Part II. After the first of the final three song, What Side Are You On? He spoke to the audience, “I hope this hasn’t been too difficult for you guys and I hope you were suitably entertained, thanks for listening. This is called Finding Meaning.” And with that, he powered through the final two songs of the show as Finding Meaning was quickly followed by If I Said I Loved You Would You Hold It Against Me. He took another bow as the crowd cheered and he thanked them once more.

I left the show quite surprised at the mix of music on show tonight, despite most of the lyrics being pretty depressing and sad, Caulfield managed to put an energetic spin on things and kept the relatively small audience entertained throughout the show. I’d be more than happy to see more concerts from this every growing indie rocker. Hopefully he’ll continue to do this for a long time, because it works perfectly.


SETLIST
Patience & Grace
Until Your Nothing
Into The Wild
Busking On The Gaza Strip
The Sky Is The Limit
Bedouins & Fireflies [New Song]
Footprints Of My Soul
A Whiskey And A Smile, Hides My Sorrow For A While
Follow My Ghost
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright (Bob Dylan Cover)
Stand By Me (Ben E. King Cover)

ENCORE
What Side Are You On?
Finding Meaning (Running Down A Dream)
If I Said I Loved You Would You Hold It Against Me

BRANDON CAULFIELD INTERVIEW

Brandon Caulfield, would it be fair to say that you’re an unknown quantity, it seems like we know very little about the man behind the music?
Brandon: Yeah, Well that’s a great thing isn’t it? I mean how would you expect to know about the man behind the music when the man behind the music knows very little about himself, I’m not one for broadcasting my life in front of the camera’s and that’s really the way it should stay, at least I hope it does anyway, besides I’m just as normal as the everyday man.

Well then let’s talk about your two albums, Into The Wild Part 1 and 2, what is your thoughts on those pieces of work?
Brandon: They were alright weren’t they? I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out, I pretty much got everything out of that period of time that I possibly could I think. It was a pretty productive time for me from that first album to the second so really from January to May I managed to put out a crazy amount of songs on those two albums, but I always felt that the songs should be sort of kept together hence the album being released in two parts.

And what about the title’s, Into The Wild. It’s not strictly an album about being in the wild, right?
Brandon: No it’s not like that, that ain’t really the meaning. Into The Wild is a sort of discovery kinda thing really, like the album is a sort of discovery and I used the Into The Wild analogy for the album, so basically you head out into the wild and you discover things about yourself you grow along the way and that’s kinda what I was going with for the album, it’s an album full of songs about discovery and growth as a person but it’s definitely not literal in that sense.

Ok and this may be a little premature but are there plans for album number 3 anytime soon?
Brandon: Nah that seems like a pretty standard question to ask, good job. Umm, yeah there’s things being planned for something new, be that a new album or an E.P or a tour or whatever, but yeah I’m always writing new stuff so the future is always in my mind. A new album … who knows right now?

And your deal at Cosmic Records is now up, are you looking for a new label?
Brandon: Umm, No. I wouldn’t say I was looking, obviously if I do wanna release a new album then I’m gonna need a label to support it so obviously that’s a bridge I’m gonna need to cross sometime, I’m not particularly looking forward to that because that involves selling myself and I can’t really do that, I was never cut out to be a salesman so yeah it’s inevitably gotta happen but It’s where I’d feel most uncomfortable.

And why is that?
Brandon: Because, there’s nothing I can say to sort of sell myself to a record label. I dunno why a label should sign me, I’m a songwriter but I’m not great at all that outside stuff, I don’t understand the corporate stuff that comes from a label, that’s not really where my strengths lie, give me a guitar and an audience willing to listen and that’s enough for me.

Ok, so if you were to release a new album sometime soon, what would be different compared to the first two albums?
Brandon: It would be pretty different from what I’ve been thinking recently. I’ve kinda got two ideas that I wanna take forward on the next record and that’s either to record it with a full band, kinda create a true Americana rock album, and my other idea is to make a duet album which has been creeping into my mind a lot more recently, I think there’s something pretty great happening in popular music right now because you’ve got this new emphasis and kinda trend for the return of acoustic singer-songwriters which is promising for me because that’s always gonna be my preference, so with people like Katie Coyle, Ellie-Grace, Cristina Lake and Jenny Hudson coming through it’s nice to see that influx of singer-songwriter stuff so a duet album is definitely something that’s been interesting me.

And who would you be interested in recording the duet album with?
Brandon: Who knows? I think it’s more of a case of who would be interested in working with someone still relatively unknown in music terms. But you know it’s just an idea right now, nothing is planned, if that is a route that I decide to go down then I’ll make sure I can find that perfect match both lyrically, vocally and musically. But like I said it’s just an idea right now.

Ok, well we’ll be looking out for any new material from you in the next few months, good luck with everything and thanks for your time.