Last night’s concert featuring Gary Jules and Cary Brothers has everything a good soft-rock acoustic show needs: mellow instruments, dim lighting and of course, angsty music to depress the hell out of the audience. But in a good way.

Jules, best known for his song ‘Mad World’ from the ‘Donnie Darko’ soundtrack, co-headlined the performance in the Schine Underground with Brothers, famous for his contribution ‘Blue Eyes’ to the ‘Garden State’ soundtrack. The show was put on by the Bandernstach Music Series in hopes of bringing more diverse music to Syracuse University. The two acts performed more than two and a half hours worth of tranquil music ranging in style from folk to indie to emo.

‘You’ll notice that there is pain in these songs. They’re all about girls,’ Brothers said with a smile after playing a set of particularly sorrowful songs.

Around 125 people watched the performance in the Underground from rows of chairs, only halfway filling the maximum capacity of the room. But this small audience only furthered to create the intimate atmosphere the musicians provided.

‘I think that the show was meant to be intimate, and there was a great turnout,’ said Sterling Proffer, co-president of the Bandersnatch Music Series and a sophomore television, radio and film and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major. ‘The artists felt great about it; everyone felt great about it.’

Brothers opened the show with no introduction, but instantly charmed the crowd with his soft-spoken voice and interesting mix of guitar styles. He sang and played on an acoustic electric guitar while his friend Jason Kanakis played light backup on a warbling electric.

What Brothers lacked in excitement he made up with powerful lyrics and style, singing about different events that clearly had an effect on his life. He kept each song sounding similar with overall tone, but clearly varying each one with a powerful presence that came through without any forced emphasis. In fact, the only time Brothers faltered was when he belted his music into the microphone, breaking the soft daze he held the audience in.

The small venue also allowed Brothers to make a connection with the audience. He often went through and explained what songs meant and how he created them. Brothers often would make small talk, telling jokes and stories about his life as a musician.

‘I grew up in Nashville, Tenn., and moved out to Los Angeles to make music, which makes perfect sense; leave Nashville for music,’ Brothers said.

Brothers’ soft rock continued far into his set, even when he reached his famous track ‘Blue Eyes.’ Once completed, the audience politely and lightly applauded due to familiarity, but it was clear they would have been just as happy with the music sitting in the dark room, absorbing the atmosphere around them.

When Brothers finished, Jules took the stage. He played music with a similar mellow feeling to Brothers, but at the same time was completely original in his work. Besides the varied sound of his acoustic electric playing, Jules’ lyrics were less about physical events in his life and more about the abstract ideas he had when thinking about these events.

‘I had this girlfriend who was on drugs. She thought it was a novel thing, but I had known people who were on drugs before,’ Jules said. ‘She thought it was neat and I thought it was frustrating, so I bailed her and wrote (a song).’

Jules sang about everything from poetry he read in college to his opinions on his family; themes that seemed to connect with the audience.

‘I loved the show because I felt (the artists) put all my feelings into words that I could never do,’ said Tyler Sepelik, a freshman biology major. ‘I enjoy music like that a lot.’

Jules also used the intimate venue to connect with the audience on a personal level. Being from Los Angeles, he would often interlude his songs by talking about how cold it is here, especially for the first couple days of spring.

‘I’m sorry about running back and forth to switch guitars. My roadie froze to death on the way here from New York City,’ Jules said.

Besides the weather, Jules also enjoyed talking about SU, explaining how he has wanted to come here since finding out this is where Lou Reed went to school. Jules would take breaks to ask the audience questions about the town and the school.

‘You used to be Orangemen and now you’re Orange?’ Jules asked. ‘Well congratulations ladies. Several hundred years of struggled has resulted in your being Orange.’

At the end of his performance, Jules called Brothers and Jason Kanakis back on stage to an encore with his hit song, ‘Mad World.’ While normally done on the piano, the song worked surprisingly well with the mix of electric and acoustic-electric song and backup vocals, and was a suiting finish for the night.

‘I thought it was a good show; very mellow, very low-key,’ said Lindsay Grueselle, a junior television, radio and film major. ‘I think they should bring more artists like this to SU because … they’re cheap and they’re good shows. I mean, it’s different artists then they’ve brought in the past, and it was good.’

Overall, the show set out exactly what it was meant to do. It was not the high-energy shows many are used to with Bandersnatch, but something different and was a nice relaxing break for overworked college students.

‘This is definitely an experiment and it looked like it worked really well,’ Proffer said. ‘So we are going to continue to bring as diverse acts as possible, and we are definitely not ruling out any more folk or acoustic shows in the future.’

Published on March 22, 2006 at 12:00 pm