Concert Review: Bo Staloch at Antone’s

On the last stop of his ‘The Garden’ tour, musician Bo Staloch and opener Emma Ogier transported Antone’s to a proverbial, Austin-inspired service: an emotional, religiously imbued set occasionally interrupted by references to doobie-smoking and luxuriating in big cities.

Written by Zachary Bolash

Photos by Taylor Mills

Austin native Bo Staloch is a country-pop musician with hit singles such as "Santa Fe" and "Your Eyes Tell Stories." The country rocker toured the United States on his ‘The Garden’ tour, performing his final show on Nov. 1 with opener Emma Ogier. 

At 7:59 p.m., just a second before the clock struck 8:00 p.m., Emma Ogier and her band mysteriously took the stage through a plume of smoke. The band was dressed in country accoutrements: featuring flannel shirts, trucker hats, and baggy jeans.

With a backdrop of light applause, the band silently turned their guitars and readied themselves for their first track. Ogier previously posted this unreleased demo on her social media accounts; the unveiled track was buttery and shimmery, a perfect introduction to the band’s savory country somberness.

After the track faded, Ogier formally introduced herself and her band, which consists of her guitar-stumming brothers Coen and Aiden. While transitioning to her next track, her firestarter, “Live Lately,” Ogier praised Austin and remarked that the city was “where all her cool friends live.” The breezy track featured an equally airy vocal delivery. Its sweet melodies and lyrics, such as “You’re so honest it intimidates me / Guess that’s why I’ve been lying lately,” had an irresistible, swaying quality to them. The audience, fanning out from the grandstand, could not help but shimmy to the liquid melody.

Ogier then took the time to thank the headlining act and commented that his team were the kindest and most generous people she has worked with. The artist then advertised a hand-burned CD she sold throughout the tour, and, as Ogier commented, these CD recordings “may never see the light of day” beyond this tour.

Ogier proceeded to perform a song from this fabled CD, “Flag,” a bassier and thumping cut with deep guitar riffs tenderly juxtaposed with Ogier’s country timbre. The next cut from this yet-to-be-released duo of songs was a largely instrumental track featuring some airy synthesizers, naturally concluding the country and folky set. 

At 8:28 p.m., Ogier bid adieu to her Austinite crowd, expressing her gratitude once more to Staloch and his band before exiting the stage.

Bo Staloch’s band entered enigmatically as if a mysterious force conjured them to the stage. The ragtag group entered silently with an ambient track hovering over the band as the quirkily dressed individuals — a guitarist ripped from a Riot Grrl magazine, a semi-business-casual bassist, and a fraternally dressed guitarist adorned with a backwards baseball cap — prepared for their first song. Staloch hopped on the stage at the fashionably late 9:01 p.m. to a choir of hoots, hollers, whistles, and even an exclamation from a doting fan that “he [was] so cute!” 

Staloch and his band began with the beguilingly soft, “Your Eyes Tell Stories,” with Staloch frailly stating that “the devil must be lonely at night” and “shoulders get heavy when mothers cry.” However, midway through the track, Staloch and his band sonically startled listeners and unassuming couples in the audience who were “looking for something fun to do tonight” with a wall of percussion and guitar strums. 

The song ended with a showcase of Staloch's vocals, a yodel-like note piercing through the air of Antone’s. The energy continued in the opening tracks with cuts like “Give It A Break” and “Wait It Out,” similar country tracks that provided the sonic voltage to keep the audience’s energy alive; the guitarist, Nina Napeles, jibed with fans flanked to the right side of the stage, stating that she was “having so much fun tonight.”

At 9:12 p.m., while the energy was high, Staloch commanded the audience’s attention, transposing the feel-good country show into something almost liturgical as he took the helm of his synthesizer. The frontman addressed the crowd, stating how much “[performing] was a dream of his” before swaying into his next track, “The Garden,” which he warned often moved him to tears, as it was about his future children.

“The Garden” has an appropriately somber beginning, with a synthesizer track looping in the background as it backs the crisp vocals of Staloch while he tenderly states that he “believes in love and the gospel.” However, similar to “Your Eyes Tell Stories,” the beginning was a farce, as banging percussion and folky strings reentered the sonic “garden,” accompanying an accordingly epic lyric, “don’t forget to love when there’s blood in the water.”

After the track faded, Staloch tenderly introduced his bandmates, offering an especially warm welcome to Napeles, whom he called “the most beautiful girl in the world.” The band then charted a new sonic path, one that was much more indulgent and unvarnished compared to the religious-sounding “The Garden.” They performed their track, “Birds of San Francisco,” which contained occasional references to smoking weed and luxuriating in the Golden State, before moving into a powerful cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain.”

The somberness flirted with in “The Garden” returned when Staloch asked the audience “if it was okay if he talked for a bit.” Staloch explained that he is especially emotional tonight as the performance marked the last stop of his U.S. tour, confessing that this past year contained both the highest and lowest points of his life. The Austinite reiterated how grateful he was to be here tonight before segueing into the emotionally wrought “Fault Line.”

The singer’s emotionality was reflected in the song’s delivery, as Staloch transitioned between frail-sounding vocals and his classic, country rasp, inquiring, “Who the hell likes crying?” The track faded into the equally introspective and despondent, “Oh Pacific.”

As the band approached its last few songs, Staloch directed the audience to applaud for his mother, who recently had been attending shows and selling merch on his behalf. However, the wholesomeness of the moment was interrupted by Staloch confessing to his friends and family attending the set that the next song, “Angelina,” was going to be a bit “inappropriate.” Staloch was wise to warn his peers as he sang lyrics like, “I undress you / You undress me / I like your skin when I’m in you.”

The night concluded with a wholesome full-circle moment as Staloch performed his first song ever commercially released, “Springtime Red Tulips.” The piece was mellow, but carried a bittersweet tune into the night, earning him the cheers of local fans and rounding out both his tour and cementing his place as local legend. Staloch triumphantly ended his set, nodding to the crowd, lifting his guitar into the air almost in a trophy-like fashion, representing the impressive mileage of his relatively short career.

At Antone's, Staloch and Ogier created a palpable environment jolting alive with a sonic electricity and a joie de vivre of the world. The performance was a notable high in the inevitably long and impressive career ahead of Staloch and his band.