The Cactus Cafe is not a poorly ventilated venue, but the air was wet, hot, and heavy upon my entrance. On stage, the three-piece act Hill Country were well into their first song, interspersing percussive guitar stings and gentle symbol marches with lyrics about a cover band that’s just killing time.
Hill Country were not killing time, and certainly were not a cover band. They were a refreshingly creative alt-country band, comprised of bassist Michael Wolf, drummer Charlie Silven, and led by one Billy Wenmohs, the singer songwriter responsible for every melody and lyric present in their set.
Pushing on, Hill Country gently wove their way through song after song, enthralling the audience more and more with each verse. If one paid any mind to the posture of the crowd, they would be able to slowly ascertain the development of a following. The gradual lean of the unfamiliar, and the un-refilled beers of an engaged listener.
By the end of their set, I even saw one crowd member—completely unrelated to the band, confirmed by my interview after the fact—take out his phone and film the band’s second-to-last song.
The stories told by their songs were in-depth, their instrumentation was clever, and their alternating tempos (fast then slow, slow then fast) all made for an excellent performance.
Hill Country started the show off right, and made themselves a tough act to follow. But Llano are a tough act to beat.
Llano’s set began with the haunting sound of Zephyr Yellman’s fiddle tuning up and tuning the audience into the band’s first song—“Ziggurat.” Then, a concussive burst of audio-technical force catapulted us into their world. Two guitars, a bass, a drum kit, and a fiddle altered the room completely.
It’s hard to communicate the value of that odd-instrument-out in Llano’s songs. Yellman’s fiddle is almost a third vocal in the mix. It captures and pulls the audience when it needs, taking center-stage, and it underscores the band’s sound at all other moments. It adds sticcato’d depth to the complicated bass lines effortlessly played by Brooks Johnson, and when needed, it adds pitched emphasis to Finnegan Schauer and Lucas Hendrix’s guitar-melodies. When the fiddle is present, it is additive.
If Yellman’s violin was the fuse, Hendrix Crockard’s drumming was the ten-ton-bomb tucked in the back of Cactus Cafe’s tiny stage.
To break the continuity usually required by this genre of music coverage for a moment, Crockard’s drumming was incredible throughout the show—to such an extent that I refuse to highlight only one section. He played to tempo, enhanced the sound, and split some ears while he was at it.
Brooks’s bass playing falls in this same category. His instrumentation was a constant delight. He brought something stronger to the very heart of the band’s sound. He pumped it full of soul.
Now, to return to continuity. Four-ish songs after their performance began, Lucas Hendrix completely took over. The keys to the kingdom in hand, Lucas’s blues-y vocals dominated the room. Heads visibly turned, ears metaphorically bled, and Lucas’s sweat beaded down the side of his head.
But at no point did Lucas hog his spotlight. Readily, the band shifted back to their original form, Finn sung on the track with Lucas, and the sound was shared again.
At Finn’s request, I’ve left them out of the piece as much as I can. But, the fact is, Llano couldn’t have executed their last song without them. Their dreamy vocals, laced with intensity, brought the world behind them and kickstarted its apocalypse. In fact, in all of their vocal parts, large or small, that same intensity was shown. And that intensity, combined with their bandmates’ strengths, make up the incredibly impressive up-and-coming band: Llano.
Currently, you can find Llano on Spotify with their first album: “Ultimate Frisbee,” and you can find both Hill Country and Llano on Instagram at @hillcountryband and @llano.music, respectively.