J Tillman’s everything you’d expect from a Fleet Foxes solo effort: a haunting voice, harmony-rich breakdowns, and quite an impressive hirsute face.  He toured on his own for several years before joining the Foxes later in their recordings to play drums, but Tillman’s music had already felt like a natural extension of their Americana aesthetic.  His is a more ’70s Neil Young-centric, introspective folk rock, one that’s musical vocabulary is just as expanding and all-inclusive as his better known group.  A towering presence on stage, it was hard not to hang onto every note he sung and the somber lyrics they carried forth.  One appreciated the Echo for finally living up to its name with Tillman’s seasoned voice filling up the entire room and the walls sending its best approximation back to our grateful ears.  And what a voice, an uncanny combination of Jason Molina and Will Oldham’s vocal timbres, it’s probably at its most effective when Tillman would simply, wordlessly hum.  Maybe it was all that hair covering his face that made some of his cries resound like a lone wolf howling in the darkness.  Whatever it was, not a one spoke a word during such intimate moments.  Most of the material revolved around slow tempo, forlorn ballads, which might not be the best choice in keeping an audience up past the midnight hour.  Still, hiding underneath these songs was a slow-burning tension that threatened to break through.  Tillman’s rhythm section made certain to accent this, the drummer practically chomping at the bit, crashing and thundering on skins and cymbals even at a snail’s pace, while the bassist’s rumblings provided a nice counterpoint to the frontman’s soft strumming and wandering words.  Every once in a while the band gave right into this musical force they’d been holding back, and like first rain falling on a desert, Tillman would pick up a tambourine with the apparent intent of smashing it to pieces while the band let loose a storm of frenzied energy.  Evan Way of Parson Redheads played the slot before, his band playing easily likable, upbeat folk songs in a Dylan vein.  He seemed as excited to see the headliner as all of us were, settling into the crowd as soon as he was done to get a good view of the show.

—Greg Garabedian