This was one of the most frustrating shows I've seen in a long time. The guys (of course!) were great and played their hearts out, as they always do, so my negative experience had nothing to do with their performance. It had everything to do with almost every other aspect of the evening. My main problem was with the audience. My wife and I had to move several times to try to find areas of the venue where people weren't having full-voiced conversations with one another or on their cell phones.

I've been to a ton of concerts, but people at the Music Box for this particular show were especially rude. The vibe in the audience was not the sense of comraderie that I've experienced at previous Avetts shows, in fact it was downright snobby and hostile at times. There was a lot of cutting and pushing and more than one confrontation. Weird and sad for fans of such a great and uplifting band to behave so poorly.

The Magnolia Electric Co. was not a good match for the Avetts in my opinion. I agree with Cotty's review of this portion of the evening. Not my cup of tea, either.

Finally, the sound at the Music Box was TERRIBLE, which is (sadly) par for the course there. I think the venue should replace their sound staff. The banjo sounded muddy and was EQ'd with almost no highs or mids, and was pretty much buried for the first few songs. The banjo volume was boosted as the show went on, but the EQ quality never really improved. The vocals (thankfully!) were mixed pretty well, and the beautiful harmonies were clear and strong. The cello was lost at times, though the bass and acoustic guitars were mixed fairly well.

The setlist was awesome and the guys seemed to be having a good enough time, but for this audience member, it was a pretty horrible experience. Again - NO fault of the band. Hopefully it was just a weird night, though if the boys getting more popular means more hostile and rude cell-phone-talking fans at shows, I'm happy to listen to the Avetts at home or in my car.

If you had a good experience at the show - good for you! I wish I'd been standing where you were.