#lyrics are from edmund temper by amigo the devil

[greasby]

"I have a heart like a diamond, I have a mouth made of lead."

[kinkajouwof]

I never asked you to move the mountain

I just want the strength to climb and find

A different way..

[sinceileftyoublog]

Amigo the Devil Live Stream Review: 2/5, Veeps

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Amigo the Devil sure took advantage of his first show with a full band. Saturday night at The Belasco in Los Angeles (and streamed via Veeps), the folk singer didn’t even come out first. Rather, the set started with pounding snares before the other members, including Danny Kiranos (Amigo himself), entered the stage, guitars dueling. “Hello!” Kiranos screamed, asking the crowd, “Are you fucking ready?!?” before launching into “Quiet as a Rat” from last year’s Born Against. Amigo the Devil has never been close to traditional folk, but with his showmanship, voice mega distorted, and screaming delivery interspersed throughout his songs, he was closer to punk and noise than anything.

It was more than Amigo the Devil playing these songs the way they were meant to be heard live, closer to the grandiosity of the recordings. He’s a frontperson through and through, and the band gave the songs new life. Take “Different Anymore”, which starts out a gentle folk song with gorgeous acoustic picking but builds into a sludgy ripper, or “If I’m Crazy”, built around a thumping bass and drums. Kiranos is a constant--always on--but the versatility of the instrumentation added to the macabre nature of his tales. His first time playing Everything is Fine’s “Edmund Temper” wouldn’t have been nearly as successful without backing vocals and a creeping guitar line, and pseudo-metal riffing carried “Murder at the Bingo Hall”.

Best, though, Kiranos didn’t lose his ability to dominate a stage just because he had other players behind him. The lyrics were front and center on stark performances of “Cocaine and Abel” and “I Hope Your Husband Dies”, while Kiranos needed “a second to calm down” after gut-wrenching anthem “Hungover in Jonestown”. “Life is a joke / Death is the punchline,” screamed his fans even louder than Kiranos himself on “Jonestown”; earlier on after “Dahmer Does Hollywood”, he remarked how impressed he was he could still hear the crowd sing back at him over the band’s elephant noise.

Amigo the Devil drove from Austin to Los Angeles for the show, a trip that saw them getting stuck in the snow, their windshield wipers flying off, and the tour van dying at the California border. But they still made it. Their arduous journey combined with the uniqueness of the show, the night felt triumphant, a re-arrival of an artist starting a new chapter.

Born Against by Amigo the Devil