The University of North Carolina men’s basketball team was wrapping up its ACC tournament sweep in town at the Verizon Center, bringing its powder blue clad fans with it. So it’s no surprise somebody said “Go Tar Heels!” in the middle of Skylar Gudasz’s opening set at the Rock & Roll Hotel Friday.
But they could have just as well have been fans from Gudasz’ home base of Durham, N.C., or even from neighboring Virginia—she grew up north of Richmond in Ashland. After her own graduation from UNC, she stuck around Chapel Hill to record with the likes of pop rock ace and ex dB Chris Stamey, who featured her on the big Big Star tribute tour a couple of years ago where she was a standout singing things like “Thirteen.”
With her own solo debut Oleander out last month (also produced by Stamey), she was in DC to start a tour with Mount Moriah at the club, which responded (mostly) to her clear voice and sometimes hushed pop with reverent silence, which is a little unusual for the barroom.
With an electric guitar she mostly strummed, she was backed by four musicians in a band that was sometimes not needed (and started some songs in folded arms, waiting to come in at all). For nearly half of the set, she was at the piano, where she likely created the songs to begin with.
For Gudasz, it’s all about the voice—with a rich, clear, direct tone and some remarkable control that commands attention. Listen to the trills and low notes in the near a cappella verse that begins her “Car Song,” that begins with a question one doesn’t expect on the first night of a tour: “Will we always be on the road?”
There’s something mesmerizing about her quiet approach and vocal accomplishment that allowed her to pack in quite a few ballads in a row, largely from her Oleander collection including “Kick Out the Chair,” “Just Friends,” “Ships,” and “I Want to Be With You in the Darkness.”
Perhaps because she was limited in time, she didn’t sing some of the covers that have been getting her attention—of Big Star, or Tim Hardin’s “If I Were a Carpenter,” the Beach Boys’ “Surf’s Up” or the Beatles’ “Long, Long, Long” (pretty good song choices, all).
Gudasz got some attention for her super deadpan delivery of the anti-love theme “I’m So Happy I Could Die” that comes with a fancy video. But it’s just about the opposite approach of most of her music, and what makes it so appealing. Instead of the kind of snide sarcasm that’s currently in abundance, she’s refreshingly direct. That, along with her uncanny vocal clarity, proved she could sooth both a rock club and calm even its most exuberant Tar Heels fans.
