It’s finally happened: Spring is here again in Maine, and Port City Music Hall has the perfect combination to celebrate the slow crawl of the approaching summer.
The always intense Portland-based folk singer Jacob Augustine will join Wesley Hartley and the Traveling Trees as part of the venue’s weekly TWO music series Tuesday.
Since their 2009 debut “Narrow Gauge Quad Trains,” Wesley Hartley and the Traveling Trees have gained universal acclaim for their seamless fusion of vintage country, in the vein of greats like Hank Williams and Waylon Jennings, with the fiery wall-of-sound passion of My Bloody Valentine for a genre all their own — appropriately titled horse-shoegaze.
Backed by an impressive group of musicians, vocalist Wesley Allen Hartley possesses one of the most evocative ranges in Portland, delivering tails of traditional American romanticism and heartache that should only be experienced by someone forty years his senior.
Accompanying the Traveling Trees is the criminally unheard and underrated Jacob Augustine. Since the dissolution of Augustine’s previous effort, Jacob and the House of Fire, late last year the always evocative singer/shouter has only intensified his forceful stage presence with his existential sermons of a misunderstood world.
There are few acts, locally or nationally, that can compete with Augustine’s ability to emotionally control an audience, and Tuesday night’s show shouldn’t disappoint. With the doors opening at 8 p.m. you’ll want to be there early to make sure you don’t miss a minute of what is sure to be an amazing show. As with every TWO show it’s 21+.
We weren’t kidding when we said Jacob Augustine can control an audience. Here he is live performing “Hallelujah Banks” at the Mayo Street Arts Center earlier in the year courtesy of HillyTown:
And this is Portland’s alt-country powerhouse Wesley Hartley and the Traveling Trees with “Acreless:”