Photo courtesy of Sea Wolf

As the last bit of sunlight crept behind the horizon last Friday night and the coolness of the evening set in, people seemed to come from every corner of Salt Lake City towards In The Venue. As a friend and I were searching for parking, which was very scarce, I got confused because I didn’t think Sea Wolf was that well known to draw out so many people. Last year I saw them also at In The Venue and there were a couple hundred people, if that, at the show. As we walked up to the venue my confusion was resolved: Flogging Molly was playing an earlier show at the big stage of the venue. Sea Wolf would begin later in the small, side venue where they played last year.

A friend introduced me to Sea Wolf right before I saw them last year, and I was amazed by their performance. I immediately bought “Leaves in the River” after the show and was drawn to the catchiness and honesty of the 10 tracks on the album. It sat displayed on my shelf and its tracks topped my iPod favorites list for months afterward. Sea Wolf is the indie folk project of singer-songwriter Alex Brown Church, but he drafts in other musicians to record and tour with him. He has been playing with some of the same musicians for several years now.

After a pretty boring and unimpressive opening act Friday night, Sea Wolf took the stage to applause and screaming. The group started into its set. I must say, I think this performance topped last year’s. It was incredible. The band recently released its newest album, “White Water, White Bloom.” I hadn’t heard anything from it yet, but the band played several songs off it and they were amazing. The newer stuff appeared to be a little more rock and less folksy, but Church’s unique vocals still gave it the familiar modern folk-rock, Sea Wolf feel. I can’t wait to hear the new album in its entirety.

Sea Wolf did a great job mixing songs from its latest release with songs from its previous two albums and the crowd loved every second of it. The band members couldn’t keep the smiles from their faces as the crowd cheered and hollered after every song and sometimes even throughout the songs. After about 45 minutes of playing, the band played “Black Dirt” and really got the crowd dancing and singing along with every single word. Immediately following, the band members put down their instruments and began walking off the stage. Only Church came back on and picked up his guitar. He played a soft acoustic song followed by the return of the rest of the band.

The group ended the show with one of my favorite songs, “You’re a Wolf.” They couldn’t have left without playing this song. As the opening chords began and the crowd recognized which song it was, they cheered. Then the bassist missed his cue and the song stopped. He smiled and held up his hands as the audience laughed and then applauded encouragement. This gave Sea Wolf’s guitarist enough time to tell his second joke of the night—something about a friend thinking the name of Salt Lake was really Salt Lick City. And there being a lot of Mortons there!

The band tried the song again and nailed it. It was a perfect close to a perfect show. Sea Wolf is one band you have to check out. Listen to their music and go see them next year when they hopefully return to Salt Lick. I mean Salt Lake.