Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real bring country to the Bay Area

Lukas Nelson remains one of the few singers on this planet whose voice couples a powerful growl with an unignorable natural vibrato… and he makes sure to show it off! Along with his band, Promise of the Real, the southern rocker started his show at the Great American Music Hall impeccably. After two and a half hours of waiting — the time being passed by admirable performances from Lilly Mae and Tyler Childers — Lukas entered the stage and surprised the whole audience with his first words: “This is a song I wrote recently about aliens, after I watched this show, Rick and Morty”; even the toughest looking person in the crowd could not manage to hold back a giggle when these words were spoken. The band continued to play a series of gripping songs, all powered by Lukas’ relentless guitar playing. Most songs fell under the category of southern rock, but most guitar solos reveled in blues influences. Surprisingly, the mesh of influences worked pretty well, with the climax of every performance being Lukas’ solos. Playing fiercely and passionately, Lukas did everything short of changing his name to bring out his inner Stevie Ray Vaughan; his facial expressions matched every note and his body trembled with every vibrato.

The concert was authentic and moving, until climaxing with the seventh song, “Something Real.” This blues song rocked the audience to an entirely different level than before. However, Lukas then performed five straight acoustic songs by himself (two originals and three covers); after giving the audience pure energy, he toned it way down. Although this could have been done in an effective way, the fact that it was five consecutive acoustic songs killed the entire band’s momentum. Finally, when the band returned, they finished with four strong songs — one of which was a Paul Simon cover. Unfortunately, the same energy that arrived with “Something Real” never returned

Overall, the concert was worth attending, even if a bulk of the greatness arrived in the first half; it truly could have been one of the best concerts I have ever attended if — in the middle of it — the band carried on with their momentum instead of leaving Lukas to play an acoustic guitar by himself. Nevertheless, Lukas Nelson has really started to make a name for himself, and rightly so. Though he has not yet reached the heights of older southern rock giants, like Lynyrd Skynyrd, he is not too far away. In my opinion, to fulfill his colossal potential, all he needs to do is capitalize more on his commanding guitar playing and follow up his last album — Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real (2017) — with another great one.

Rating: 7.1/10

Written by Shayan Shirkhodai