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Sunday night at The Hollywood Bowl was a night of transportation – a celebration of Americana-style music that left me feeling as if I had somehow been beamed back to the late 1970′s. Blitzen Trapper opened the show with Sleepytime in the Western World and really set the tone for the evening. In just this song alone, one can hear traces of influence from The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan.

“Of course I was influenced by all of them, you know, the classic songwriters like Cat Stevens, John Lennon, and Bob Dylan, well, the writing can just stand on its own – you can put the words to any kind of music and it just works.

I also listened to Sonic Youth and Pavement a lot. For me, it was really all about the sounds,” said Eric Earley, lead singer of Blitzen Trapper.

Even if you’re not familiar with the Portland-based band’s sound – with lyrics like, “You can wear your fur like a river on fire,” and a bassist with the surname VanPelt – it’s not difficult to imagine what type of music you’re in for. Think Davy Crockett and pioneers, a more manly, woodsy-type, folk rock.

Sidenote: If you haven’t been acquainted with the tremendously talented group yet, don’t despair. They just finished up their second session with Sean over at Daytrotter on July 13th.

The version of Furr that they recorded in their first session with Daytrotter is an instant classic in my book. I’m moved to a place that I wish I’d experienced in reality, almost a nostalgia for something that I never actually knew.

Earley says he was, “homeless in Portland, squatting in a studio space, and I wrote that song in ten minutes. It just came out. Same as Black River Killer – wrote that in fifteen minutes. Most songs are like that, but some do just form over time, more like it’s a feeling.”

Next up was Jenny Lewis who took the stage in a pair of form-hugging, denim overalls. She totally and completely captivated the crowd with her undeniable good looks and impeccably spot-on vocals. The crowd fell dead silent when she started into the Rilo Kiley favorite, Silver Lining.

Lewis, whether knowingly or not, drew uncanny resemblances to Stevie Nicks throughout her performance, lending even more to the feeling that I had somehow entered a time warp back to the days when Fleetwood Mac ruled strong.

In an act of pure coincidence, a venue staffer approached me as I made my way to the private aftershow and asked if I was a fan of Lewis’. When I answered affirmatively he handed over the guitar pick that she had used throughout her set.

The Americana bliss continued without break when Ray LaMontagne came out to headline the evening with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra playing backup.

This is the point in the night where it officially turned romantic. It was a perfect 70 degrees, with just a whisper of a breeze – the sun had set and the sky was littered with stars. Concert-goers had finished their picnic dinners and were two or three glasses into the after-dinner wine when Ray started singing about his woman, begged for forgiveness, and asked to “Let It Be Me.”

He had fingers interlaced all around the amphitheatre and chills covering a majority of the arms in attendance. Speaking of the attendees, the celeb-heavy crowd had me tempted to title this piece, “A Star Filled Night at The Hollywood Bowl.” (Cheesy, I know. I may be shameless, but even I have limits. That doesn’t mean, however, that I won’t spill. It just means that I’m going to hide the name-dropping a little farther down in the column.)

Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel sat up front for Ray’s set, while Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal were on hand to show support for their “good friend” Jenny Lewis. The latter stuck around for the aftershow, mingling with Caroline Murphy, Fran Drescher, and Kate Bosworth, among others.

After the concert we walked out back to the load-out area behind the Bowl and found the Blitzen Trapper guys tailgating in their van.

Ingrid, the groups manager, walked up to inform Earley that she’d caught his mother buying T-shirts at the merchandise table.

“Eh, it’s okay. She has money,” he laughed.

I asked him what he thought about his Hollywood Bowl debut,

“It was cool. I actually got to catch a lot of Jenny and Ray because my mom had box seats. After our set I just went and sat in the audience.”

Erik Menteer, the band’s guitarist, managed to squeak his way out of the group shot when I was snapping the Polaroid, but it all worked out in the end. You can catch a glimpse of him in the background of the one I took of Earley and his mother.

DETAILS:

Hollywood Bowl
301 N Highland Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90068
(323) 436-2827

Polaroids by Aubrey Nicole.