The Avett Brothers

“The songs are honest: just chords with real voices singing real melodies,” reads The Avett Brothers’ short write-up on the Boston Calling website. Those songs are also effortlessly organic. Rather than muddy up the flavor profile of their music with eclectic sauces and spices, the group lets the raw ingredients stand for themselves. Essentially, The Avett Brothers make music that is simple. And while their work may lack the technical sophistication of records put out by musicians in other genres, the simplicity of their music allows them to focus all of their energies on playing with passion. Their songs are comfortable. Listening to them is easy, and so is singing along.

Hailing from the woods of North Carolina, the band comprises guitar and banjo players Seth and Scott Avett—yes, they really are brothers—along with Bob Crawford on the double bass and Joe Kwon on cello. The band released their first album in 2002 but did not emerge as the big label powerhouse they are today until they released their 2009 album “I and Love and You.” They have brought their brand of roots rock to a wide audience and continue to climb the Billboard charts with each subsequent album release.

While The Avett Brothers may seem a more appropriate headliner at the Newport Folk Festival than in the urban center of New England, their arrival in Boston makes sense. For one, Boston Calling’s typically smaller lineup tends to lean toward a more eclectic group of artists. More than that, their arrival is timely. This is a time in which Donald Trump leads Republican presidential candidate polls by a wide margin because he represents a counterpoint to what The Atlantic calls “the current immoral situations that taint and threaten our blueprint of the American dream.” Many people seem to be especially anxious to return to simpler times, and The Avett Brothers provide just that.

“They are a reality in a world of entertainment built with smoke and mirrors, and when they play, the common man can break the mirrors and blow the smoke away, so that all that's left behind is the unwavering beauty of the songs,” their Boston Calling biography continues. So go to the center of Boston to get away from it all. For one set, the artifice of the city will dissolve and all that will remain is music: simple, pure, unadulterated music.

—Staff writer Andrew J. Wilcox can be reached at andrew.wilcox@thecrimson.com.