Bandelier and David Hernandez
Thelma’s Peach
Tulsa
Jan. 20, 2024
What could have been Bandelier’s triumphant re-entry into 2024 show life was, both by accident and by fault, upstaged.
In the purple ambience of Thelma’s Peach, the wildly excellent opener David Hernandez kept the audience rapt with a set of ballads played on his classical nylon-strung guitar. These pieces were soft, somber, and easy on the ears: “funeral songs,” he said, grinning through his half-Spanish and half-English covers and originals. Hernandez is a massive fingerpicking talent: sweeps and trills and little solos arose out of nowhere, only to seamlessly transition back into the body of the song.
The Juarez/El Paso native played a simple solo acoustic set, and yet, with his high, intimate voice and a set of obviously classically-trained guitar hands, he kept the crowd absolutely thrilled. I’ve seen a less awed audience at the symphony. I’ll be excited to see what he does next; this was the best solo acoustic music I’ve heard in a long time.
Bandelier’s set was harder to classify. The band is a five piece, with guitar, viola-fiddle, upright bass, piano, and drums; two trumpet players joined for the first of the two hours. They play an occasionally upbeat, Lumineers-on-Ambien folk rock, oscillating between euphoric and cataclysmically depressed. I’ve seen them once before, when they played a gorgeous stripped-down set a few years ago at SLUMGULLION, the art cabin on the grounds of Philbrook. Ultimately, Bandelier needs that kind of quiet, listening audience; maybe a bar just isn’t right for them.
Many of the songs were soft and slow, the kind of work that’s hard to stay with on a cold Saturday night. Lead singer Ryan Allen gave us a somewhat exciting first half followed by a dour, quiet second half, and I was left wanting more energy from the whole thing. All of the material in the two hours could have been whittled down into a strong one-hour set. By the time the band finished, the majority of the crowd had filed out, leaving the few of us who remained to mop up the leisurely music. A set like that would have worked better with an attentive audience, which Bandelier did not get.
Not that the individual musicians were without talent. Each member had their own moments of powerful musicianship; drummer Nathan Wilson especially lent many moments of exceptional technicality to the act. But most of them, frankly, looked bored. They mentioned that this was their first show of the year, and I hope they’ll consider making some changes as they play more in 2024. More energy was needed to keep this bar crowd going. It’s a rough bargain being asked to sit quietly in a setting like that for two hours with only intermittent bursts of power.
Ultimately, Hernandez stole the show. Bandelier has the material and the energy to put on a great bar show, but this wasn’t it. More discernment was needed about which songs belonged where and why — or how best to convey their particular brand of gentle western folk.
