Two Gallants at Schubas

Two Gallants are an intense guitar-and-drums duo from San Francisco. They have little in common with the other guitar-and-drum duos knocking around today’s music world (you know who I mean…). These fellows are a lot folkier, but they sing and play with such passion that it very rarely has the mellowness you might associate with folk. I’d seen them once before, opening for Rogue Wave a few years ago at Schubas, a show that included a memorable moment at the end when Two Gallants took their guitar and drums onto the floor and played a song unamplified, surrounded by a circle of listeners. That sort of thing didn’t happen at the early show last night (Sept. 29) at Schubas, but singer-guitarist Adam Stephens and drummer Tyson Vogel played their songs with a similar feeling of intimacy and immediacy. My favorite parts were the acoustic songs that opened and ended the show. The electric songs in between were good, but sometimes the nonstop aggression of Vogel’s frantic drumming on top of Stephens’ straining vocals can be a bit much for me. I was hoping to hear the great song “Waves of Grain” from the 2006 album What the Toll Tells, but we didn’t get that (at least during the first show of the night), but it was still a pretty strong set. The opening act was Songs For Moms, a female trio from San Francisco that played loud and driving grrrl punk-pop.

See my photos of Two Gallants.

Leave a Reply