I’m not a particularly nice guy. I tend to be overly critical. I tend to be a purist. I tend not to be particularly interested in musicians who tend to be “fun.” I don’t like sunshine or puppies or String Cheese Incident. So I probably shouldn’t be reviewing music, especially jam bands…All that said, I had a pretty good time at the Keller Williams/Acoustic Syndicate show last Saturday night (Nov. 3) in Dana Auditorium … kind of.

Williams was funky and brilliant, playing a loose blend of, well, everything, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was that one crazy guy at every open mic night who, while talented, just can’t put across any emotion or message to the audience other than, “Look at me being wacky, look at me… Hey guys, look at me!”

As sophomore Jeremy Osborne put it, “He was really talented, but I lost interest after the first song because he was kind of a novelty act.”

However, Williams was an excellent performer, and instrumentalist; at several points in his set, using sequencers and loop pedals, he recorded and looped percussion, bass, guitar, and vocal parts to create a track over which to sing or solo. While interesting, the loop approach got old for me. Rock and roll is, after all, a team sport (though maybe in Guilford’s case it’s more of a stoned intramural club), and it’s the connections made by live musicians on stage that make a show worthwhile.

Which brings me to what (for me) was the best part of the evening: the connection made between Acoustic Syndicate’s brothers Bryon and Fitz McMurry and their cousin Steve McMurry while singing harmony on their opener, the name of which I couldn’t catch, and their first encore, the bluegrass standard, “Angel Band.” Both were older tunes that showcased the blend of voices that come from years of learning to connect musically with the same people (i.e., family).

The rest of their set – including old favorites like “Sailor Suit,” and new, soon-to-be-released, material – although credible, never lived up to those two three-minute doses of harmony. It often seemed that the three McMurry’s (joined by Jay Sanders, a founding member of Snake Oil Medicine Show, on upright and electric bass), though tight and together in their vocal harmonies, were separated in their improvisation. They chose to swap solos in a classically bluegrass manner, rather than moving the band as a unit to create dynamics of tension and release.

I hate to say it, it’s probably some kind of taboo, but I liked the Syndicate’s arrangements of other artist’s songs better than their originals. Their searing covers of Neil Young’s “Powderfinger” and The Who’s “Teenage Wasteland” were just fast and raw enough to do away with some of the bad-jazz pretense that popped up earlier in the set when, in a jam with Keller Williams (who came onstage for a couple of tunes), bluegrass fusion schlumped into chorus-laden lounge muck.

Despite my own disappointment, the crowd in Dana (a surprising number of whom were not Guilford students and spent $12 to get in) had a great time dancing to the music, laughing at Williams’ visual gags, and hollering for tunes (some cat actually screamed for “Whipping Post”…).

Big ups to Union for bringing another couple of high-rate bands.