Sam Reynolds

“Where did you all come from?” vocalist and guitar player Brad Barr rhetorically asked the audience midway through the Barr Brother’s official self-titled album release show last Tuesday at La Tulipe. He was speaking to the fact that the band had already self-released the album last year to significantly less fanfare at the cozy Divan Orange.

To understand the jump in venue size one only needs to try and pick the best part of the performance. Was it that they proved they’re a band as adept at folk music as dirty blues? Was it Barr’s solo on a homemade tacklebox guitar during “Lord, I Just Can’t Keep From Crying?” Was it that there was a full-on harp solo during a rock song? Maybe it was inviting openers the Low Anthem on stage for a rocking cover of Neil Young’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” to close the show. In reality, it was that all of this and more occurred in the span of two hours. Onwards and upwards.