Country music arrived at the School Night (a collaboration between Make Out Music and KCRW) showcase. Olivia Barnes brought her Southern accent to The Airliner Bar. She grew up in Atlanta, but is currently living in New Orleans. A rather interesting coincidence of the night was the fact that the night's headliner, Macy Todd, also grew up in Atlanta.
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| Olivia Barnes at The Airliner Bar |
The reason I was heading out to School Night was to catch one of my favorite Los Angeles-based bands, Bruvvy. I did not know who Olivia Barnes was and I figured I'd do a little prep work ahead of time. While at work, I took a brief look at her Spotify account. Her most recent released caught my attention, "It's No Fun." Before even hitting play, the song title had me laughing. Why? Because a favorite Los Angeles (now living in Nashville) singer-songwriter of mine, Mara Connor, released a song back in 2018 called "No Fun." I knew right then that I was going to write up a blog post about her set.
What did I notice before she started her set? I like taking photos of setlists so that I can write up these blog posts. She wrote down her setlist on a paper towel (I suspect taken from the venue's bathroom). She put it down on the stage, not realizing that there was some spilt liquid at the spoy. By the time she noticed, the setlist was soaked. She carefully picked it up and placed it in a dryer spot.
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| Olivia Barnes at The Airliner Bar |
She did a solo set with an acoustic guitar. Her setlist was bookended by two released songs, with a run of unreleased material between the two. She opened up the set with the already mentioned "It's No Fun." When her vocals hit the higher octaves with perfect pitch, the crowd screamed their approvals. After concluding the tune, the response from the crowd had her cracking a smile.
A smile was there, but she mentioned that her next two unreleased tunes had the theme of sadness to them. Her song "Like I Did Then" was written in a green room while sad. When looking at her setlist, I noticed the song "Roswell." She's into aliens, was my first thought. Then she mentioned that it was a song about a suburb outside of Atlanta. A fun fact was that the song was written while she was in Los Angeles -- maybe when she played Desert 5 Spot earlier this year.
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| Olivia Barnes at The Airliner Bar |
The Song Spotlight goes to the final song of the set, "Reds." She gave a brief background about the song, "written about a boy that I had a crush on [that last part sung out versus spoken]. And he smoked a lot of cigarettes. Basically, a classic musician experience. And he was in my band, too. I don't know if I should say that." She got some playful jeers for the admitted error in judgement. (It isn't always a mistake to date your bandmate, as two members of Bruvvy just had their wedding.)
The song has the singer-songwriter country vibe with that non-California accent while strumming guitar strings -- a solo artist out in the Southern woods, perfecting their skills.
Smoke me like a pack of reds
Setlist: It's No Fun, Like I Did Then, Human Nature, Roswell, The Weight, Reds.
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