Shakey Graves Draws Huge, Passionate Crowd at Mountain Jam 2015

No other act we've seen at Mountain Jam received the kind of passionate response Shakey Graves got this afternoon (June 6). Which makes sense, because the Shakey Graves stage show, and the songs, are about passion. Guitar lines snake around and over flattened notes; the volume level dances on the edge of eruption.

Shakey entertained like the actor he is, like when he narrated "Tomorrow," the love song he says he wrote when he was 16, talking about how naive it is, or the way the band burst into the highway thump of "Where a Boy Once Stood." The whole one man band thing -- where his drummer and bass player temporarily go off stage and he stands alone, keeping time via a kick drum on the floor -- only brought the audience in closer.

Shakey radiated good nature, singing with his entire body; the audience shouted back with fervor. The gal in front of me turned around, ecstatic. "This is so much fun," she said, as the kids around her threw their bodies against the barricade.