Up-and-coming folk darlings Milo Greene stopped by the Middle East (upstairs) on Saturday night in support of the recent release of their eponymous debut album.
The first time I saw Milo Greene, they opened for The Civil Wars at Berklee Performance Center last October, and I can confidently say that of all the shows I’ve been to, I’ve never felt more mesmerized by a band whose songs I had never heard. Milo Greene has no lead singer or frontman; instead, it has four singers who trade instruments from song to song and create these gorgeous, lush-sounding harmonies that left me last October feeling completely content with the night even if The Civil Wars hadn’t played. Civil Wars singer Joy Williams described their act perfectly at last year’s show as a “Chinese fire drill of instrument changes.”
Fast-forward a year later, and Milo Greene is currently on a headlining tour, playing small venues up and down the coasts, and stopping by shows like Letterman and Lollapalooza along the way.
Despite an array of technical difficulties that plagued the first half of the show, including an amp replacement and a toppled tom-tom, Milo Greene sounded just as adept and flat-out beautiful as they had a year ago as they ran through their album as well as one or two unreleased songs. They even treated the crowd to a cover of old Wilco classic “A Shot in the Arm” and ended the show, as they often do, with a cover of Sufjan Steven’s “Chicago” that, dare I say it, sounds better as a live rendition than when Sufjan himself performs it.
Throughout the show, multi-instrumentalist Marlana Sheetz kept earnestly thanking the audience for showing up, commenting that they were “used to playing for family and friends, so to come to another city and have a room full of strangers come to hear us is amazing.”
Make no mistake, Milo Greene has arrived, and those liquid gold harmonies deserve a night at Symphony Hall, not at the cramped Middle East with its questionable-at-best sound system. Luckily for sound snobs like myself, Milo Greene is returning to Boston to play Brighton Music Hall on October 27. From one folk lover to another, this is me telling you to buy your ticket now: you’ll thank yourself for it later.
Click here to see music editor Sydney Moyer’s interview with Milo Greene’s Graham Fink.
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