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Review Sat May 30 2015
The Storied Vance Joy Rolled Through Metro on Friday Night
Some people are natural born storytellers. Narrative and description rolls off their tongue with ease and they can entrance an audience at the drop of a hat. Vance Joy strikes me as one of those people.
The last time Joy came to town he played to an enthusiastically packed Lincoln Hall, and the unanimous agreement at the end was that the best part of the night was hearing Joy explain the origin of his songs. At one particularly memorable point in the evening, he explained how "snaggletooth" was about his secret (or perhaps not so secret anymore) crush on Sia and her snaggletooth (which she's chosen not to fix, much to his delight.) This time the crowd at Metro was regaled of a tale of how Joy ripped off his uncle for his lyrics, only to learn that his uncle had in turn ripped off Lynyrd Skynyrd, leading to some cease and desist notices that Joy was actually pretty pleased with (his reasoning being that he was actually quite proud that Lynyrd Skynyrd was aware he was alive.)
The best part of a Vance Joy concert is that the storytelling never ends -- while Joy can certainly entrance a crowd with stories of how his songs came about, he's just as apt at entrancing them with the songs which serve as stories themselves, and stories that people connect with on a deep level. I remember telling a friend that I really enjoyed "Mess is Mine" and her giving me a look and responding, "Well yes, obviously you do, it's the story of love."
Joy made his way through the gorgeous 2014 Dream Your Life Away playing "Winds of Change," "Mess is Mine" and "Georgia" as well as a couple from his fantastically titled 2013 EP God Loves You When You're Dancing including "Emmylou" and "Play with Fire." The moment the crowd had clearly been waiting for though came at the end of the set, when Joy swapped out his guitar for the ukulele -- the whole crowd knew what was coming, and with one collective breath, wailed out with Joy "I was scared of dentists and the dark!" While Joy's entire catalog is clearly beloved by his fans, there's just something about that song that seems to strike a chord with everyone around.