Photos + Review | Blake Mills @ The Sinclair

Photos by Boston Concert Photography

[I]f it was ever apparent to anyone that a specific person belonged on a stage, behind their instrument, showing to the world and everyone who will listen that they love what they get to do it is Blake Mills. The wunderkind guitar phenom, who thrilled me with his last album, Break Mirrors, and delighted with his most recent effort, Heigh Ho, has been curiously absent from playing here in Boston. Understandably, he’s busy being a session guitarist for amazing talents from all over, and didn’t tour exclusively for his debut album, we were so goddamn fortunate to get to see and hear him play on Tuesday night at the Sinclair.

It’s hard to even put to words what exactly it was like, thrilling, amazing, inspiring, for whatever descriptor you want to put on, watching Blake play the guitar, with a huge smile on his face, it’s pure joy on the stage. Nothing he does seems rehearsed, the music feels like it flows out of him, and for certainly he doesn’t try to play it like it was recorded. In a word, it just feels special. He makes everyone around him sound amazing, and you can see it, he’s just special.

It doesn’t hurt that he’s got amazing friends that just jump on stage, we were surprised and shocked when co-conspirator Fiona Apple, got on stage to play a few of his songs with him, and well, it works so well when she’s singing on “Seven,” and “Don’t Tell Our Friends About Me,” both huge standouts on a record that is already fantastic.

Blake and his band, played some amazing music, across his two great records, a few covers and we got a guest appearance from Fiona. They jammed, explored, and everyone was left with a single word repeated over and over again. Wow. I think Steve and I summed it up pretty well: