(Below we present our Denver-based contributor Gonzo‘s wonderful review of a unique show in March by Wayfarer performing the entirety of their American Gothic album, with support from Paul Riedl, Munly and the Lupercalians, and some special guests.)
I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in my lifetime, metal music turned into the audial equivalent of Sriracha: You can add it to anything.
And few bands really understand this in the way Denver’s Wayfarer does. Their fusing of black metal’s raw underbelly with Old West lyrical themes and imagery is one of the best musical marriages happening in metal right now. They’re a huge part of what makes the Denver metal scene the unending adventure that it is. Any chance to see them perform live is a momentous occasion.
So when the quartet announced they’d be riding out to the Bluebird Theater for a one-night-only performance of their 2023 opus American Gothic, featuring some special guests that I’d never see coming, you could be damn sure yours truly would be present for it.
It was a Friday night, and the vibe was distinctly joyous inside the Bluebird. Spring was in the air outside on busy Colfax St., and every restaurant within a two-block radius seemed to have a wait that went out the door. There was something oddly poetic about that. Maybe it was tied to the beautiful post I read from the standup crew at Fire in the Mountains about spring returning warmth to the world, and what that meant to them as they figure out what’s next for that festival. Wayfarer themselves played there two years ago, so the connection to that community was nothing short of palpable right when I walked into the theater.
Many Fire folk were in attendance, as I saw more than one shirt from that festival almost immediately (other than my own.) But any show at the Bluebird promises to be a great one. Last fall, I caught VOLA there during their big US run, and it was one of the most perfect performances I’d ever seen since living in Colorado. There’s nary a bad spot in the house to see the stage, so I feel (slightly) better whenever I inevitably find myself in the dubious position of standing in front of people at least six inches shorter than I am.
I quickly cut through the crowd and got my favorite perch on the right-hand side of the venue, overlooking the pit. Friends and family of all three bands on the bill were everywhere, judging by the fragmented bits of conversations I caught. Support tonight would be unconventional for a metal headliner, but in no way would that be a bad thing. The two acts were:
- Paul Riedl of Spectral Voice and Blood Incantation fame, playing a solo acoustic/ambient set
- Munly & the Lupercalians, a mysterious Colorado-based dark folk outfit
Riedl was already into the first song of his set as I walked in. I’ve seen this guy on stage more than a few times, but never like this. The first song was a haunting 25-minute arrangement with just Riedl and his guitar. He also worked in some electronic elements that might sound familiar to listeners of BI’s Timewave Zero but with more acoustic guitar in place of the pure dungeon synth you’d hear on that record.
Riedl’s mother was in attendance, standing right next to me. He gave a heartfelt dedication to her with “Song for My Mother,” and evoked more than one tear-streaked face as he dedicated “Song for My Father” to his late father, saying that he never got a chance to play it for him before he passed away.
It was a beautiful way to start such a special evening, and I’d love to see Riedl record more of the music he played that night.
During the set change, I started thinking about this gig on an existential level. Musically, Wayfarer has ascended to some deeper spiritual plane that a lot of bands only dream of reaching. And yet, here they are, packing a huge venue in their home city for a one-night-only performance, and not a single other metal band would be taking the stage in support of this.
Would this have even happened 10 years ago? 20? Would anyone have accepted non-metal openers before what amounted to a black metal headliner? Who knows.
As a genre, this is what I’ve observed lately: metal has reached a truly unique zenith – it’s not just the adjective used to describe a type of heavy music invented in England in the late ’60s, but it’s now a term that’s evolved into something more. Its uses are now myriad, and many of them have exactly zero to do with music, heavy or otherwise.
You might even say metal is now a state of mind more than anything else. More on that in a second.
While my inner monolog was taking me deeper down a rabbit hole of disassociation in public, Munly & the Lupercalians quietly and unceremoniously took the stage. “Unceremoniously” might be a ridiculous way to describe this band, though, considering main man Jay Munly is the only person in it who doesn’t wear a mask that resembles something that I can only describe as “Metal Groot.”
Not a blast-beat, roar, or even a guitar with much distortion could be heard during their set, but Munly and his masked crew are undeniably metal as fuck. They play the kind of dark folk rooted in unidentifiable mysticism that fans of heavier music gravitate to, and nothing warms my cold, black heart more than metalheads running to stuff like this with open arms.
The appeal here, really, is of the same ilk as what drives metalheads to listen to other bands like Heilung, even though they have very little else in common with what was going on tonight at the Bluebird. Music like the kind produced by Munly & the Lupercalians might be hard to describe, but it’s part of the unmistakable Colorado sound that the band themselves helped to create and proliferate. Their set was fantastic, and they gained a new fan afterward. I knew I wasn’t the only one.
I came to this show with zero expectations about either opener, but the fact that I just spent almost 1,000 words talking about them to this point has me just as baffled as you are bored. When the lights dimmed for our heralded headliner to dust off their spurs and take the stage, I snapped out of my dissociative trance. It was time for American Gothic, at long last.
Like a thunderstorm rolling across a desert, the mighty Wayfarer roared to life quickly after the acoustic opening portion of “Ten Thousand Years of Western Promise.” The song doesn’t stay acoustic for long, though, and it would’ve been the perfect way to open this show even if it wasn’t the first song on the album they’d be playing from front to back tonight.
Vocalist/guitarist Shane McCarthy took a second to thank everyone for joining them this evening, and, he added, “a special thanks to Paul Riedl for making us all cry backstage,” referencing the beautiful tribute Riedl had played for his mother earlier.
“The Cattle Thief” came next, and the band played it with the fury of a tornado tearing through a ghost town. This song has it all – a great hook in the opening riff, a masterful understanding of dynamics, and a beefy nine-minute length. On top of that, the lyrics read like a Larry McMurtry novel. Wayfarer doesn’t just romanticize the Old West on paper – they live and breathe it, right down to the turn-of-the-century photo shoot they unveiled with the release of “American Gothic” itself.
Next on the list was the first of a few songs the band had never played live before; this one being “Repear on the Oilfields.” If they’d never mentioned it, exactly zero people in the audience would’ve been able to tell.
“To Enter My House Justified” is simply peak Wayfarer. It was the first single I heard from this album, and it continues to be one of my favorite pieces of music the band has ever written. Fresh off their tour with Enslaved, it was obvious that this one was in heavy rotation during that run.
Then, local hero George Cessna joined the band onstage, introduced by McCarthy as “the Hi-Dive’s favorite cowboy.” Shows at the Hi-Dive, Denver’s long-standing bar/club on Broadway, felt a little like this, I thought – except bigger. I’d have been surprised if a single person in the crowd had not seen a Hi-Dive show. Even Paul Riedl’s mom.
Cessna lent the band his guitar chops for their first-ever live performance of “A High Plains Eulogy.” Remember about 500 words ago when I went off on a “what is metal” existential rant? The performance of this song nailed my thought process. Again. It’s a dark, melancholy dirge that wouldn’t be out of place on a Snakes album – Cessna’s country/folk outfit based here in Denver. (If you hate country, listen to that band. You’ll simultaneously understand how great country music used to be while hating whatever the fuck it is now. Something tells me most of you already agree with that last part.)
The closing duo of “Black Plumes Over God’s Country” and the devastating “False Constellation” were simply breathtaking in their execution. The sound crew at the Bluebird once again found a way to make everything sound as perfect as you could possibly get a live mix, and my 10-gallon hat is forever off to them in admiration.
And now, the encore.
The band didn’t do any stage-clearing theatrics when they polished off “American Gothic,” and instead ripped right the fuck into “The Crimson Rider” like it was a piece of meat in a lion’s enclosure. Much to my delight, they followed that with “The Iron Horse,” another ripper from A Romance with Violence, one of my favorite records of the past decade.
When the band did finally clear the stage after the exhausting set they’d just finished, it was almost impossible to think about how this show could’ve gotten any better. As they’d done all night, though, Wayfarer came back out and casually thanked the crowd. “And you know what’s next,” he grinned. “This one’s called ‘Animal Crown.’”
For me, the next five minutes were a headbanging blur. For people in front, the same amount of time was a frenzied ordeal of moshes and thrown fists. However we were expressing it, everyone in the venue was 100% locked into the journey we’d just been on and celebrating the completion of one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen in Denver, let alone at the humble Bluebird Theater.
Few bands are as invested in both their music and their community as Wayfarer is. I knew it would’ve been impossible to walk out of that show and not feel a sense of connection to something bigger than any of us, but I didn’t expect the nearly overwhelming wave of gratitude I felt as well. It’s an incredible time to be a part of a music scene as special as what’s going on in the Rockies right now. Bands like Wayfarer not only perpetuate that feeling, but through their airtight songwriting, impeccable musicianship, and a never-ending supply of creativity, they’re pushing metal forward as a genre.