Will You Return? I Surely Hope So. Avett Brothers, Rupp Arena, April 25, 2025

By Brian Privett

Brothers Avett and Bob.

Friday night concert at Rupp Arena and I went to the Avett show only because it was raining. I had an outdoor event I was going to, the Artwalk in Paris, KY, but didn't want to stand and talk in the rain and knew no one else would either. Ticketmaster had a floor ticket at face value. Avett Brothers here I come.

I was hesitant about going and I don't know if I have a good reason for it for a band that has meant so much to me. This was a rescheduled show and I thought about but did not get tickets either time when they first went onsale. I love the Avetts, but I had seen them a couple of years ago at Bourbon & Beyond and I had checked them off my bucket list, but I've seen other bands I like less more times than once.

It comes down to this: I do not like their last three albums. Just right out, I don't, and it has hurt and confused me. I have always connected with their music because they feel like good friends that just happen to be the best musicians. They were always goofy, fun, high-energy performers that then can just write heartbreaking, honest, truth-filled songs, like No Hard Feelings, or I and Love and You.

I never connected with the last three albums. I felt like they went one way and I left them, or they left me, and there was something broken, or maybe I only liked them how they used to be. When I listen to the Avett brothers, True Sadness is as new as I'll go, so everything 2016 and before.

Also, unlike the Avett dad in Murder In The City, I do have a favorite brother, and it's Scott. Scott has the better songs and voice. Seth can be cheesy - in performance and in lyrics. If I ever skip a song on an Avett album, it's one of Seth's. The last two albums felt Seth heavy and I almost didn't go because I didn't want to spend two hours just with Seth.

I wasn't disappointed. And I feel kind of bad now, too. Sorry, Seth.

From the opener, Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise, through the 23 songs of the regular set, the Avetts played mainly older, fan-favorite songs, Will You Return, Down with the Shine, Laundry Room, I Wish I Was, and of course the live staple, Talk on Indolence. Yes, I teared up at No Hard Feelings and I and Love and You. But from the first, I felt like I was with those friends again - friends that loved me for the man I had become and not the man that I was. And I loved the Avetts back that way, even through the newer material.

They only played 3 songs in the regular set from the new albums. And they were fine, really. I get it. You guys have places you want to go. I'll be ok with it. Especially because they played so many songs that I've spent hours listening to.

I went alone, which allowed lots of people watching. Most of my fellow goers were like me - about my age, comfortably dressed, not worried about the fashion, looking like they had much more energy 10 years ago. I texted one of my friends before the show that it looked like alot of those folks probably smoke weed, but would be too polite to do it in a public place. I was right. At least on the public place part.

Sitting beside me were a mom and daughter from Somerset, mom wearing a Bad Company t-shirt and girl a Metallica shirt. They told me this was her first concert ever, that she was 16, and that she played guitar and "about every other instrument you can think of". I told her that this show would be a lot less loud than a Metallica show, and that she should play as much guitar as she can right now as a teenager because at that age you seem to absorb it like osmosis.

Watching mom and daughter through the show, the excitement of a first concert, of being able to see your child experience pure joy, innocent, exuberiant, I got a vicarious lift, even more than listening to a great band and great music. I've felt that same excitement with my own girls at different times and I think it's moments like those that make a life lived. But when you have kids getting to the age of moving out to college, or driving, gaining more independence daily, every new experience of joy with them, or then of remembering the past, comes with sadness, regret for missed opportunities, or for the times you were less than present. I came to the concert alone and I felt that sadness then. I missed my girls.

Watching that mom and daughter, singing together, clapping, cheering, like nothing mattered but the current song, was reaffirming, like a lot of Avett songs. In Once and Future Carpenter, Scott sings "If I live the life I'm given, I won't be scared to die." After the opener, Houndmouth, I asked the mom - what did her daughter think? She said, "I thought it would be louder." We all laughed.

Toward the back end of the set, Scott Avett said that they were going to Merlefest in North Carolina the next day, a festival started by Doc Watson years ago (I got to go twice in the 90's) and that they were going to play Little Sadie, a traditional murder ballad in honor of Doc. Scott is an excellent claw-hammer banjo player and he and their fiddle player, Tania Elizabeth, did an incredible tradtitional version of the song that would have been right in place in the Merlefest campground.

When they were done with the song, the daughter in the Metallica shirt, the multi-instrumentalist from little-town Kentucky at her first concert, was clapping the loudest I had seen her with a smile on her face so big, at a traditional fiddle tune that couldn’t be farther away from heavy metal. Mom was beaming.

When the show was over I said - good job, Mom. Y'all be safe getting home.

And same to Scott and Seth and Bob and Joe and the band. Glad I got to visit with you, like old friends do. Good job. Y'all be safe.

Brian Privett is a lawyer and a dad living in Kentucky. He loves the Avett Brothers, and is learning to accept that he does not always have to go along with what his friends are into, but will love them anyway.