Kurt Vile & The Violators played Royale – 12/30

Amid the desolate concertgoing landscape of late December, Kurt Vile and his Violators swung through Boston for a pair of shows to save us from staying home last weekend. 

The first of those two nights took place at the Royale last Thursday – the largest venue Vile’s headlined here in Boston. Friday’s gig at the cozier Sinclair was the sell-out, but Royale was certainly nearing capacity by the end of the night. KV’s undoubtedly a bigger draw than ever before.

Last year’s meandering b’lieve i’m goin down… is an odd record for Vile to be playing his largest stages supporting, but his recent success owes more credit to his tireless touring schedule and sturdy back catalog than his most recent record alone. He seems to have grown into the role of headlining bigger rooms, too, to whatever degree a guy like Kurt Vile can do that. I’ve sometimes been left underwhelmed by his sets in the past, but this was the strongest one I’ve seen. The seasoned five-piece band gave some backbone to goin down‘s highlights and jammed out a strong selection of tunes from Wakin On A Pretty Daze, Smoke Ring For My Halo and Childish Prodigy – a well-curated journey through Vile’s stoned psych-folk universe.

Similarly-minded folk-rockers Woods played an excellent but all-too-brief opening set, providing support alongside the delicately-picked banjo stylings of Nathan Bowles. Photos from all three sets below (with apologies to Mr. Bowles, whose mic stand made it very difficult to photograph his face from where I was standing).