More country, less rock would serve Marlowe more

Dylan Marlowe's preferred subject matter tends to be those good ol' boy Southern anchors of trucks, women and in Marlowe's case, deer.

Throw a rock sound to the songs, and you get the sense for what most – but definitely not all – of a Marlowe concert sounds like these days.

He came out of the starting gate with mainly a bunch of rock-oriented songs that had little to do with country. One of his early songs that placed Marlowe on the musical map - "Record Year" – lacked the subtly of the original. Yes, there were some good songs ("I'll Keep the Country" remains a standout), but not enough.

Marlowe was at his best during a mainly acoustic segment with three of his band mates (only the drummer was absent) while seated on stools. Gone was the rock affect heard for large parts of the generous 110-minute show. It gave the crowd a chance to focus on his lyrics and delivery instead of getting swept up in rock.

So a segment where he and one of his band mate kind of trade off on songs that were not of the country variety ("Say It Ain't So" by Weezer among them) in a sort of a tete-a-tete, well, it wasn't all that interesting or exciting.

More importantly, it was just too long and resulted in the concert dragging for a bit.

Fortunately, Marlowe changed gears with "Shop Radio," the unreleased "Picture Perfect" with the crowd singing along to Marlowe's surprise and especially the title track of his latest, "Mid-Twenties Crisis" particularly poignant. Seemingly autobiographical and definitely introspective, Marlowe dug deep and inward with lines like "Is I think I'm going through a mid-twenties crisis/I'm twenty-seven and it feels like my life is/Flying by and.>" I don't know where the time has gone/And I still can't tell if I'm one step ahead or one step behind."

Marlowe went back to his trademark topics on the closing "Boys Back Home," his first and lone number one. The rowdy song may have been about the good ol' times, but it was country and sure sounded good.

One suspected that Marlowe is still finding his touring legs at this point, given that it was only the third date. There's enough to like about Marlowe – and there'd be even more if hewed closer to country.

Marlowe's friend, Brian Fuller, (the two apparently tried to woo the same girl back home in Georgia. Both failed, but are happily married) opened with a complimentary set. He had a Jason Aldean kind of vibe going on, meaning he tended to rock more with a swath of songs on the commercial side. Like a number of virtual unknown artists who open shows, he covered the tried-and-true with Eric Church's "Springsteen" (a good one, albeit very faithful to the original). Better that he went with a new out in a week, "Write a Song" to showcase his talents.