As the year comes to an end and we see the gradual slow down of concerts, Salt Lake City got the pleasure of seeing Secondhand Seranade on The Just Because You Sing Loud Tour with stripped-down sets from guests; William Garrett, SayWeCanFly, and The Dangerous Summer. It was going to be a mellow night filled with good music.
William Garrett started off the night and immediately expressed his gratitude to be on tour with his best friends, and it was nice to hear about the friendship and the connection between Will and John Vesely. There have been quite a few shows this year where I attended and the entire lineup has been artists bringing out their closest friends on tour, and I feel like it’s an all-around completely different energy that takes the experience to a different level. One of my favorite things is when an artist that I’ve never heard of before gives a breakdown of their song before playing and talks about how the song came to be. He put on an amazing performance and made an impression on the crowd, any time his vocals were raised the crowd cheered. Salt Lake City equally made an impression on him after his set he took a selfie with the crowd before stepping off stage.
SayWeCanFly, also known as Braden Barrie, took the stage after, we also got the pleasure of being one of few crowds where he was live recording so he could release a live performance album sometime next year on Spotify. I used to be a big fan of Barrie and have seen him many times in the past and still to this day he never fails to put on a good performance, his vocals always amaze people, and his songs are so lyrically well-put with many gut puncher songs. He’s got a variety of songs that people can find more than one to at least relate to. One of the favorites that were played was Anxiety and The Lighthouse, on top of that we even got the pleasure of hearing a new song that will be released sometime next year. After his set many people talked about how much they really admired him and thought his performance was amazing, they all discussed amongst themselves how they were looking forward to listening to more of his songs in the future.
The last band to get the crowd warmed up right before Secondhand Serenade, was The Dangerous Summer. I was super excited to see their set because the last time I had seen them play in Utah the performance was phenomenal and I knew I had to at least photograph them once, thankfully I had the pleasure of doing so that night. They expressed their gratitude for being a part of this tour and getting the opportunity to play music again, everyone suffered a hard time last year and they were happy to hear that The Complex didn’t have to be one of the few venues to shut down and encouraged everyone to keep purchasing concert tickets and drinks to keep the place going as well as the reminder that when purchasing merch when attending concerts to help support bands. With live music coming back I think it’s a reminder that people often needed, he encouraged cheers to everyone for being there that night and coming out early to get out William Garrett, SayWeCanFly, and themselves. They talked about how during the pandemic they worked without the label and worked on creating their single, Fuck Them All by themselves and with a good group of people. When hearing something like that from a band, it changes your perspective completely for the songs and sets a different type of admiration for the band. The entire set was just as great as the last even if all of their songs were stripped down versions, what I enjoy most about their performances is hearing all the emotion from the vocalist and seeing them get completely lost in their songs. It’s a type of performance that is a must-see.
We finished off the night with Secondhand Serenade, from the minute that he walked on stage with his band the smile never left his face. He was incredibly happy and thankful to be back to playing shows and thankful to have the opportunity to be touring with his best friends and most importantly his wife. After his first song, before starting into his little speech the crowd was cheering for him and you could just easily tell how amazed and incredibly thankful he was to be there. He expressed that Salt Lake City has always been one of the best places to tour and he’s known that ever since his first tour back in 2017 when he had just signed with a label and didn’t want to take any of their money and he toured the west coast in his Volvo and when he came to Utah the crowd then was three times as big as any of the other dates. He described the crowd’s energy as “another country” the reason being is because the US is constantly getting tours from multiple people, but other countries are very rare so when an artist goes out, they’re giving energy that’s out of this world and that’s exactly how he felt about Utah’s crowd every time he came through.
There was a lot of complications that night from William Garrett having his guitar strap pop off and troubles with the tracks and having to resort to playing only acoustic halfway through his set, The Dangerous Summer having microphone problems and the sound in the speakers, and Secondhand Serenade breaking his guitar strings before starting his solo acoustic songs and not being able to find his tech guy, he had a moment of panic and ran around stage shouting, “I don’t know what to do!” Despite the complications, it didn’t faze the crowd and they were patient and reassured him it was totally okay; with the reassurance of the crowd, I could tell the artists were easily relaxed and not worried themselves. It was a mellow night but very much worth it thanks to these amazing artists.
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