So I went to this show fairly last minute, more or less on a whim. I had been a fan of just one Blitzen Trapper song (Furr), which I was disappointed to find was not especially like much of their other music. I discovered this long before this particular show, so hadn't really been planning on going, though I was curious at least to see that song, as well to see what their live show was like. Dawes I had never heard of.
Then a friend told me about a Tweet from Adam Duritz (I'm an old Counting Crows fan) mentioning Dawes and that he and the band might be going to check them out. That got me interested in Dawes as Adam's taste in music, while not always the same as mine, is often good. I checked them out briefly on Youtube and they seemed worth seeing. It also seemed novel enough to maybe catch a glimpse of Adam and the band at the show, hehe. I'm not a stalking groupie, I was mostly just curious to see if they'd actually show up and be in among the crowd.
Anyway, I never saw Adam, but I was pleasantly surprised by both Belle Brigade (I was familiar with their song "Loser", which I liked before) and Dawes. I got there just as Belle Brigade was going on and they had a really enjoyable, fun stage vibe, clearly young musicians in the beginnings of their break-through success, so really not "rock stars" yet, just good people, with good voices, playing good songs.
Dawes was a really pleasant surprise. They have a couple great guitarists, and the lead singer's voice is quite nice too. Overall a really tight group musically, playing some great, classic-sounding alt-country-rock songs.
Bltizen Trapper is an interesting one. They're kind of all over the map a bit. Similar musical roots to Dawes I suppose (alt-country-ish), but they mix in some New Wave, straight rock, emo, and other stuff, sometimes all in the same song. They did a pretty nice rendition of Furr, and I still love that song, but I just wasn't really into enough of their sound to totally recommend it. I will say that they're very good musically, so if you do like their music in general, they put on a good performance, and seeing them with Dawes (though I think that tour configuration is over now) is certainly a great pairing.
So, good show, mainly on the strength of Dawes and Belle Brigade for me. Had it just been Blitzen Trapper this would have been a 3 for me I think, solid but not super memorable. Definitely check out the Dawes song "A Little Bit of Everything", a classic "story telling" song and really quite beautiful and moving.