By: Michael Bragg (Photo Gallery & Review) of MJBragg Photography
Greenville, SC (February 27th, 2019) – Rolling into Greenville, SC for the last night of a month long solo tour fans were eager to see BJ Barham of American Aquarium for a laid back story tellers type acoustic show.
Making his way through the Radio Room crowd to the stage, he grabs his guitar and starts into “One Day at a Time” from the groups newest album release “Things Change“ and “Losing Side of 25“ from the “Wolves” album.
Taking moments between songs to tell some stories about the tunes themselves and a few other topics I don’t think people expected to be a part of a comedy show. With BJ telling tales about growing up out in the country of North Carolina to a hilarious story about a Fathers Day lawn mower gift there were plenty of laughs. Barham also spoke about self-awareness and owning up to mistakes in life acknowledging his sobriety and former band members. Speaking of the good times but also some regrets he began to play the song “When We Were Younger Men.”
Speaking on other things like religion and politics I particularly liked what was said about “Discussion” and how people don’t do that anymore. We just have a social media world of people who want to argue instead of showing respect for one another’s opinions. He spoke of how many tend to just “block” ones out of their lives who do not share the same mindset creating a lack of diversity and understanding. A light hearted moment on that topic was speaking of his father blocking his neighbor and friend of many years on Facebook over a post about Waffle House hash browns.
BJ went on to play other songs such as “Unfortunate Kind“ and ”Madeline” from his solo album “Rockingham” and the song “Wolves” from the album of the same title. He told the story of the song “Burn, Flicker, Die” (originally titled “Red Heads & Adderall”) being his favorite for how it really changed things for the band at a time when they had thought of calling it quits after 2yrs of touring playing over 300 shows each year for very small crowds. He told how friend Jason Isbell (formerly of Drive By Truckers) convinced them to record the album.
As the night came to a close BJ took time to speak with fans taking pics as he personally ran his merch booth thanking those in attendance for coming out.
As one who has seen a few American Aquarium shows this was a nice, welcomed change of pace. Hopefully Barham will choose to do this again in the future.
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