Show Recap: Gabe Dixon/Jay Nash/Justin Nozuka @ Bluebird

On Wednesday Kassie and I went down to the Bluebird to catch one of our favorites artists; the Gabe Dixon Band. We stumbled upon Gabe Dixon a few years ago on a preview for a new TV show, Conviction or something like that. His song, All Will Be Well was the theme-song for the first season. After finding some of his music we realized that he was a very small-time artist and really hadn't established himself yet.

Last year we went to see the Dave Barnes/Matt Wertz show in Boulder and it just happened that Gabe Dixon was the opener. He might have been the best act of the night! He plays piano and his music is like piano-rock/jazz/ben folds style that gets your toes tapping. I did more research and found out that Gabe used to play in some Christian bands and Younglife camps and had a really positive message, but had struck-out with recording companies. he just recently signed a new deal and put a new record last month, and its great!

Anyway, for the show. We had never heard of Jay Nash, and didn't know very much about Justin Nozuka. Jay Nash opened the night, a tall singer/songwriter with his electric guitar and his Danish drummer on a jazz kit with brushes. Jay grabbed our attention instantly with his voice, so controlled and powerful, almost twangy at times. His songs were simple but his sound was very full and captivating.

Most of his set was just him and a drummer, but in the middle of the set Gabe Dixon and his bass player came out to play a few full band songs. We were very impressed, tapping our toes and nodding along with the beats, but in the end Jay's voice was the most impressive part of his set. I would totally pay money to see him again.

After Jay Nash was Gabe Dixon. He played as a 3 piece, piano drums bass. He played most of his notable songs, opening with 5 More Hours, and dedicating All Will Be Well to "beautiful people of Colorado". His songs have such good driving beats and Gabe is so passionate when he plays. He has a hard timing keeping his own butt on the piano bench, standing up to sing choruses while keeping his hands going pounding out the music. All of this while drinking Northern California's finest beer Sierra Nevada Pale Ale!

After playing 5-6 songs, Gabe played And The World Turned by himself with no band. After this he announced that he had a special surprise for Denver, since he doesn't come here too often. He did a cover of Bob Marley's Is This Love? while he played a wind piano , the bassist played a guitar and the drummer played what he a "shi-tar", basically a guitar with strings attached to it and played more like a hand drum. they all gathered around a single mic and did a front-porch rendition of the Bob Marley song, it was incredible!

After that they played a few more songs, Gabe was great all night, he's not very comfortable on the mic talking to the crowd, but he almost seems effortless when he's singing and playing piano. For the closer Til You're Gone, Gabe brought out Jay Nash to play guitar, and his Danish drummer to play tambourine. I've never seen anyone play tambourine with so much joy, he just smiled the whole time, apparently loving the tambourine. What a great set by the band, be on the lookout for these guys!

5 More Hours
Sirens
Disappear
All Will Be Well
Further the Sky (with no Mindy Smith unfortunately)
Til Your Gone (amazing!)
Far From Home
The World Turned
Find My Way
Is This Love (Bob Marley cover)

We stuck around for a few Justin Nozuka songs, but weren't really impressed too much. Justin's singing is a little over-the-top and isn't really all that unique, his band was pretty weak compared to the previous bands, and his songs all sound somewhat the same. He opened with Down In A Cold Dirty Well which was pretty good. After that he seemed to be more show than substance so we took off, we'd seen who we wanted to see.


Here's Jay Nash from my camera:

Matt Wertz/Dave Barnes Review

Oh man

This was an epic show. On Saturday Kassie and I went up to Boulders Fox Theater to catch the Two Birds One Stone Tour featuring Matt Wertz and Dave Barnes. I've been telling people about these guys and this show for awhile, and man, you guys really missed out!

First of all, the Gabe Dixon Band was the opener. I've known about these guys for about a year now, ever since their song All Will Be Well was featured on the NBC show Conviction. Its piano rock, like Ben Folds Five but better. They're a three-piece, piano, drums and bass and they were amazing. Gabe had so much energy he could barely stay seated on his piano bench. their music was awesome, great head-bobbing beats, and Gabe's voice was amazing. The best thing about their set was that they knew that people probably didn't know who they were so he only played 5 songs before the headliners.

seriously, i'm telling you now that the Gabe Dixon Band is worth checking out, and they will make it pretty big before they're done.

Now for the best part of the night. I was hoping that the guys would do this so it was great to see, Matt Wertz and Dave Barnes played together, singing each other's songs and hitting all of the hits. Even better, the Gabe Dixon Band was the band for Wertz and Barnes, so it was like an all-star event, like Jay-Z and Kanye, like Crowder, Shane&Shane, Robbie Seay all together.

it was epic

I don't even know where to start, you could tell that Wertz was the confident one up there, he's been on a few national tours. This was Dave's first time to Boulder and he was a little nervous but his songs are undeniable. They played together for about 40 minutes before Dave left the stage to let Matt do some of his softer songs like Counting to 100. After that, Dave came back and played some of his slower songs like Crazyboutya.

The Fox was packed and the atmosphere was amazing, everyone was singing along and the energy was great. before we knew it, the guys had been playing for 2 hours, and no end in sight. About halfway through the set, Matt and Dave gave a speech about the Mocha Club benefit ting Africa. this was a little awkward, it took them about 20 minutes to say what could have been said in 10. but out of the speech they gave the stage to Gabe Dixon to sing his hit, All Will Be Well solo. it was really good, great song, you need to check it out.

The guys came back and played what seemed like every song off their albums, Carolina, Someday Sarah, Until You, Grace's Amazing Hands, Can't Grow Tired of Your Love, Change the World (unreleased), Heartbreaker, 5:19, The Way I Feel, Marianne, Somedays and a ton more

Unfortunately Kassie and I are old people now and we had to leave before the encore so we don't know how that went, or what songs they did.

We had a great time, and if you get a chance to catch this tour when it comes to your time, i doubt they will tour like this again, so go see it.