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Alabama Shakes, Live In Concert: Newport Folk 2012

For all the attention Alabama Shakes' music has attracted in 2012 — and its album Boys & Girls marked a huge breakthrough earlier this year — the live stage is where the soulful blues-rock band transcends mere "one to watch" status. Boys & Girls is the work of polished professionals at the top of their game, but in concert, Alabama Shakes' music reaches ecstatic, sprawling, rafter-shaking heights. Singer Brittany Howard has the bearing, power and charisma of a star twice her age, but on stage, she's positively dominant. She belts, sure, but she doesn't just belt.

It helps that Howard is backed, both on record and in concert, by the airtight proficiency of ace backing players. For a group that wouldn't sound out of place among epic-minded jam bands, it's telling that Alabama Shakes' new record rarely lets its songs stretch beyond the four-minute mark: These folks don't waste a second, and the resulting sound feels both loose and impossibly tight. Here, the band performs at the 2012 Newport Folk Festival, recorded live on Saturday, July 28 in Newport, R.I.

Set List:

  • "Goin' to the Party"
  • "Hold On"
  • "Hang Loose"
  • "Always Alright"
  • "Rise to the Sun"
  • "I Found You"
  • "Heartbreaker"
  • "Boys & Girls"
  • "Be Mine"
  • "Mama"
  • "Making Me Itch"
  • "I Ain't the Same"
  • "You Ain't Alone"
  • "Heavy Chevy"
  • Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

    Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)