Photo Credit: Walter Salas-Humara
A man with a gray beard and acoustic guitar walked among the crowd, slowly strumming his instrument. He stopped and smiled at a man and woman casually talking near the back and then started playing louder and singing. And he stayed there for nearly two hours, performing without a stage or microphone.
In fact, things were so casual for Walter Salas-Humara on Wednesday night at Anodyne, he started planning—perhaps only half-jokingly—an expedition along the Colorado River with members of the audience after the show.
He requested audience participation by way of call-and-response during “Satellite,” but not before enthusiastically explaining the dynamics and structure of the song and soliciting impromptu support from several local musicians in the crowd, which included Dean Schlabowske, John Sieger and Brian Wooldridge. At Salas-Humara’s urging, Schlabowske periodically provided updates from the Bucks-Raptors game in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Salas-Humara’s approach allowed him to connect deeply with the crowd and created the perfect showcase for his impressive song catalog, stretching from his work with the Silos to his most recent solo album, 2018’s Walterio. In this format, songs such as the Silos’ “Caroline” and “Commodore Peter” sounded warm and fresh, while newer songs like “Here We Go” (“find the lost core, the perfect wave, the final high, the secret cave”) and “Come in a Singer” (“and go out a song”) showed Salas-Humara was only getting better as a songwriter.
The only drawback of the microphone-free approach is that it was occasionally difficult to hear Salas-Humara’s frequent insights and quips between songs. But the artist, always smiling, was charming and giving throughout the performance.
He finally ventured up to the stage for a few songs at the end of the night with the show’s opener, Milwaukee’s Zach Pietrini and his band. Salas-Humara seemed equally engaged, encouraging and connecting with the younger musicians during their soloing. He roared through the garage-stomper “She’s a Caveman” like Little Steven was in the audience handing out record contracts, and the leftover adrenaline seemed to carry over to a sped-up and delightful run through “I’m Over You.”
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On their own, birthday boy Pietrini and company delivered accomplished Americana originals. Pietrini has an appealing voice that occasionally suggests a less nasally Steve Earle. “Learning the Hard Way,” which takes on kind of a sly, Waylon Jennings pacing and the bouncing “Dance” were among the standouts from the five-piece.
