Generally, when a stage is filled with six guitars along with a bass and a sampling machine, there's a crowded menagerie of confused high school band members banging into each other. But when there's only one person on stage, things get more confusing.
Keller Williams took the TLA stage at 10:45, about an hour and a half later than the flyer decreed he would. Yet within seconds, the crowd that just moments prior had been freezing their backsides was in an enthralled stupor as Williams tore into his first song, embarking on two sets of his folk-funk-jam-and-everything-else musical stylings. Combining his unbridled stage presence (Williams exudes more charm, charisma and good hearted laughs than a line of Rockette midgets), Keller swiftly employed his most notable trick: the Loop.
Using a foot pedal and the mixing board to his right, Williams deftly recorded and looped his instrumentation and his singing into a repetitive yet engaging backbeat. Besides the looping of bass, vocal and guitar riffs, in the second set Williams also used what could only be described as plastic bong tubes, beating on his legs rhythmic thuds layered three deep and then layering these again with a steel drum and a whistle.
As if Williams' own sonic creations weren't enough, throwing Springsteen's "Born to Run" in the second set brought an overheated crowd back to life, and ending the night with the infamous lines "I wanna rock 'n' roll all night, and party every day" seemed fitting.
It's rare that a one-man musical act can become a spectacle, unless it's a guy with a guitar in hand, a harmonica in mouth, a drum tied to his back and a dancing monkey at his feet. But Williams even manages to beat out that aforementioned artist.
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