On Friday January 30th, Keller Williams and the Motet brought their good times to the storied Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, CA. Their brief co-headlining tour is sponsored by Open Vape, whose decked out van was parked out front of the venue. Two friendly guys in backwards caps were marketing their vape pens, but unfortunately… they weren’t offering free samples.
Inside, Keller Williams opened the show with “Breathe,” from the 1999 album of the same title. The tune was a nice way to ease the crowd in, before Keller paid homage to Tom Petty with a cover of his song “Rebels.” This one was so finely executed that most in the crowd did not realize it was a cover. Keller kept things interesting by heading back to “Breathe,” transitioning to “Rebels” once more, and reverting to “Breathe” again. Keller’s back-and-forth antics were anything but repetitive though, as each time, the songs that started out in a mellow fashion became increasingly improvised. It’s just the kind of antics that we all completely expect, but have come to know and love. This guy knows how to please a crowd and make it look easy.
Next up was a comedic portion of the show, first with the always entertaining “Gate Crashers Suck” on his acoustic, and then a fine tune about cruising around a Super Target with an over the shoulder rocket launcher.
Williams next delighted the crowd with “Freeker by the Speaker.” It seemed like the fans were most enthused by this song, with the whole crowd singing along. Williams, however, seemed annoyed with this one. Perhaps he felt obligated to play it to the L.A. crowd, and he signaled his frustrations by abruptly ending the song after a short jam and declaring, “Alright, that’s enough.”
If Williams seemed like he was going through the motions with “Freeker,” he looked like he had a ball with the next song, “Bob Rules.” Williams mixed in a concise rendition of Phish’s “Birds of a Feather” before concluding his Price is Right dream, and lamenting the gate crashers at Deer Creek once again.
Williams ended on a high note, joined by Gabe Mervine of the Motet for “Makin’ It Rain,” and finishing the set with “Bird Song” and a “Doobie in My Pocket.”
After a brief intermission, we quickly found our places as Motet frontman Jans Ingber was getting the crowd going. Never shy in bringing the high energy groove right away, The Motet got really funky with it, seamlessly dividing their playtime between jamming together and giving the stage to each instrumentalist for some solo time.
The real standouts of this group were the brass players, trumpeter Gabe Mervine and saxophonist Matt Pitts. They seemed to really get the crowd moving and wooing when they had the floor. Ingber would switch off between bongo drums and dancing around as the band jammed around him. He did a roll call of sorts by giving some awesome solo time to keyboardist Joey Porter, bassist Garrett Sayers and guitarist Ryan Jalbert.
Even Keller Williams was having a good time, as the guitarist sat in for a song during The Motet’s funky set. The excellent double-billing, courtesy of Open Vape, certainly brought good tidings to those packed into the historic venue. If you get the chance to see either of these two artists, please do – their top-notch performances will surely blow you away.
