Two things were made clear Friday night when Maybird commanded the stage at Three Heads Brewing. First, their time hitting the road playing gigs across the country has been paying off. Even in returning to Rochester, playing in front of friends, family and fans old and new, the band has shed that familiar ‘local band’ tarnish. It was still the same band, but tighter, more confident, boasting a more muscular full-bodied sound. The kind of bold sound that has been knocking out audiences far and wide.
Secondly, the band has not forgotten their roots in the midst of their blossoming success and discovery. They were clearly excited to be back on familiar turf, showing their love for Rochester continually throughout their 80 minute set. The oldie but goodie song “One Love” they claimed is played nowhere but Rochester, led one to believe that when lead singer Josh Netsky sang, “You are my one love,” he was talking about his native city. Guitarist Overhand Sam Snyder proudly recounted how it made people happy to hear they were from Rochester when they were out on the road. But just the simple, “It’s sweet to be back home,” uttered a few songs into the set made it quite clear.
From the building slinky psychedelia of “Maybird” to the tight big rock dueling guitar finish on “Turning Into Water,” the set was stacked with tracks from their two most recent EPs. But there were a few surprises as well. They dropped in a brand new tune “Don’t Keep Me Around” with synth-heavy grooves. A few covers were played, spanning the decades. They took on the 60’s with Brenda Lee’s “All Alone Am I,” payed tribute to early 80’s David Bowie with a perfectly funky “Ashes to Ashes” and brought it up to the last decade with a Rosewood Thieves cover, a song which Snyder had originally contributed to and one that their tour manager, Erick Jordan, had actually written. The show closed with a bombastic encore of “Call You Mine,” another older tune, the full sound bubbling over with Kurt Johnson on a ferocious electric lap steel.
The band is about to head back out for more touring, this time sharing the stage with fellow Rochester success story Joywave. If you can’t be home, might as well take a piece of it with you.
Setlist: Nocturne, Maybird, Ashes to Ashes (Bowie), Don’t Keep Me Around, All Alone Am I (Brenda Lee), Bluebird Flew Away, One Love, Grace, To the Stars, (Rosewood Thieves), Two Horizons, Keep in Line, Turning into Water
Encore: Call You Mine
The first notes of Specimen transport the listener to a different dimension. The intricately woven acoustic rhythms and spacey loops featured throughout create an aura that is somewhere in between the past and future, but certainly not in the now. If you close your eyes and dig deeper into the EP you may suddenly get the feeling that you are alone, lost on a farm in Medieval times. However, you cannot be sure you have gone too far into the past as spaceships and the glowing effects of technological advancements cautiously linger above. The combination of folk-influenced songwriting with psychedelic loops throughout create a futuristic Americana sound that can delicately be defined as an Emersonian audio experience.
They sang about the man who sat on a bench in Portland, rain or shine, to watch as a Marriot was built on the riverside. There was a song inspired by the soul of her just passed 99 year old grandmother. Another about young people finding true love, or maybe not, in small town America. The hard-working border agent she heard about on the news, the drunk woman who told her her life story from a bar stool and the stories she read on the Occupy website. There were songs about fathers, sons, uncles, mothers and daughters, and one about womanhood which included a shoutout to local and national hero Susan B. Anthony. There was the one about William S. Burroughs, how he stupidly and accidentally shot his wife dead. “Just Like You” included verses about Hitler and Jesus and includes what may be the most hilarious opening line of any folk song: “Joseph Stalin came from someone’s vagina.” Most songs were deep and dark, but Tivel answered later in the show with her own humorous tune, about a smattering of whacky characters she met while dating on Craigslist, in which the conclusion was, “We’re all crazy all the time.”
The all-local show included support from 
Kennedy