Over the past decade, we at the Scene have spilled a good bit of ink about the headliner of Friday night’s show at The 5 Spot. Almost every news item has begun with a variation on, “It’s been a minute since the last time we heard from Evan P. Donohue.” There’s a temptation to turn that situation into a negative. In a perfect world — hell, a marginally better one — the majority of people who work in creative fields wouldn't have to piece together so many sources of income to make a living. Also, Donohue's insightful, complex, catchy and invigorating ’70s-pop-schooled songs and voice like a gentler John Mayall would be better known. (Although he might still have a parallel career as a touring sound engineer, working as he does with pretty rad folks like Margo Price.)

Donohue seems to be making the best of the world we are living in. The house was full for the album release party celebrating Page of Wands, his third full-length. He and his bandmates and their guests offered up a reminder that just because someone's not making music full-time doesn’t mean the music they are making is somehow less valuable.

Ziona Riley set the tone for the evening with an engrossing five-song solo acoustic set. Her lyrics are inventive, perceptive and economical. Riley has mastered the art of making songcraft invisible in songs that convey the uneasy feeling of reaching that second stage of adulthood — the one where you feel more different from your adolescent self than ever — in a chaotic world. Her voice is gentle but powerful, and her fingerpicking is understated. The audience chatter fell to a whisper when she started. The overall effect was that the half-hour or so of her performance feel like a few moments set aside from the regular flow of time, which is about as much as you can ask from any musician. 

It’s been far too long since I’ve seen Supermelt in person — as best I can recall, the last time was before their most recent release, 2015’s Nobody Else. It didn’t seem like much has changed, and that’s a compliment. If your brand of loud-ass psych-rock blends motorik beats with Hawkwindian heft and Ty Segall-grade hooks, it ain’t broke and does not need fixing. Something that will need to be fixed is frontman Ben Weber’s guitar amplifier, which died about halfway through the set. Donohue’s two much-smaller amps were close by, and within a couple of minutes, house sound engineer Buddy Hughen and Weber (who you may have seen running sound at Little Harpeth Brewing) had one of them miked up and snarling through the P.A. Rising rockers take note: Massive wattage isn’t always the answer to sounding good, especially in a small club. Weber’s tone was noticeably thinner, of course, but it cut nicely through his band’s wall of thunder.

While the crew from light-show outfit Darling Lucifer unfurled its backdrops and did one final test of its projection gear, Donohue and an expanded version of his band (drummer Joshua Minyard and bassman Coley Hinson were augmented by vocalists La'akea Presley and Kitana Louise and saxophonist Graham Reid) ran a quick sound-check. They played Page of Wands front to back, conveying the richness of the narratives on the album while conjuring the just-loose-enough psychedelic feel that separates this album from its predecessors. As with the best records of any genre, every song is like a new, delightful surprise, and the show followed suit, whether the extra joy was to be found in atmospheric sax lines from Reid or an unexpected and brief burlesque performance by Kitana Louise. The tunes run the gamut from the dark and melancholy “Past Blue Ribbons” (which seems like it could be a companion to “California Sunshine” from Donohue’s 2010 debut Rhythm & Amplitude), to the cooly buoyant “High in the Country,” to the tender "Open the Curtain" (for the last of those, Riley returned to the stage for a guest lead vocal).

One can hope that Page of Wands will help spread the word about Donohue far and wide. Even if it doesn’t make him rich and famous, these are the kinds of songs that you hope people will find when they need them, and set a benchmark for aspiring musicians to look up to — perfect world or not.

Below, check out a slideshow of photos from the show.

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