He sings about murder. He sings about prostitution, dark memories, and drunkenness. He also sings about love. The White Buffalo (aka Jake Smith) is being heralded as one of the best and most powerful folk/countrish-rock singers of recent years. He played a sold-out show on Saturday, April 28th at The Belly Up in Solana Beach. What makes Smith such a compelling performer? Well, he definitely doesn’t hop on to the stage and greet the audience with heavy metal devil’s horns nor does he swing his arm around and around in a full circle as he completes a guitar solo. About as rock-n-roll as he got was yelling out to the crowd, “How you doin’ motherfuckers?” Quite simply, Smith’s voice is what rivets the crowd – everyone hangs on to every note he plays, every syllable he sings. His band is made up of Tommy Andrews (who has quite a San Diego following – one fan hollered repeatedly, “T.A! T.A! I love you T.A!) on bass and Matt Lynott on drums. There was also had a guest musician playing lap steel guitar. All four of these musicians bring an incredible amount of expertise to the stage.

Smith’s voice is similar to Eddie Vedder’s, but it is deeper, fuller, more authentically pained. The White Buffalo played 19 songs and came back to the stage for four more songs as part of his encore. The crowd was still anchored in place until 1 a.m. Highlights of the set were “Everynight, Everyday,” “Damned,” “The Pilot,” “John Jameson,” which he dedicated to anyone in the crowd who likes whiskey, and “Love Song #1,” a song he wrote for his “beautiful woman.”

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