Only His Shadow Stands By Him...

Considering the impact David Eugene Edwards' music has had on me (especially over the past two or so years), seeing Woven Hand play consecutive shows bordered on a religious experience for me. I saw them play Wednesday at Hoboken's staple venue Maxwell's, and Thursday at NYC's Knitting Factory.

The emphasis both nights was on songs from "Consider the Birds," their sophomore release, but they included some 16 Horsepower greats (both nights they played a stomped-out version of "Strawfoot" and closed with "Black Soul Choir"). Hearing these guys (or guy... often DEE sits solo with the lute and jams out) on record is fantastic, but it's only one element of appreciating them; unlike some bands whose live songs are exactly identical to the recorded ones, Woven Hand injects such genuine energy into their set that when David creepily stares at audience members for long periods of time and wails "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth... We don't know the meaning of grief..." I can't help but believe him. And the songs are so versatile that many can either be rocked out at full volume or stripped down to a single instrument and David's voice, so you really never know what to expect.

As usual, Pentax was in attendance. He bought me a Yuengling. He also snapped some cool moments from both nights... This is a pretty random assortment from both shows, mostly my favorites, arranged linearly as they were taken. No random assortments this time around! As always, for those of you NTG fetishists that absolutely must see every picture I take, drop me a line via elec-tronic mail-ing and I'll load them into a Snapfish album so you can view every single damn one! In the meantime, here's the highlights...

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[editor's note: Great thanks and respect go out David Eugene Edwards and Ordy Garrison for allowing me to photograph their performances.]


*****N*T*G*****

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