Free at Noon Flashback: Wielding only a guitar and microphone, City and Colour wows the audience

City & Colour | Photo by Liz Waldie | lizwaldie.com

The naming of City and Colour makes sense when you learn that it is the musical brainchild of Dallas Green, whose name is a city and then a color. How the Canadian singer-songwriter was given his birth name is a lesser known story that surprisingly has a connection to the City of Brotherly Love. Dallas Green’s father made a bet on the 1980 World Series for the Philadelphia Phillies to win. On September 29, 1980, Green’s father won his bet and Green’s mother gave birth to him; in celebration of the win, the musician’s father named him Dallas Green after the Phillies manager with the same name.

With only an acoustic guitar and a microphone, City and Colour wowed the crowd at World Cafe Live this afternoon. The singer-songwriter’s guitar had the perfect blend of warmth and brightness, and his silky voice reverberated throughout the room. City and Colour started off his set with the title track from his recent release, If I Should Go Before You. Using different and unique tunings for each song, he admitted that he can’t successfully chat with the audience while tuning his guitar. A fan chimed in to ask where the singer bought his boots, and this set up the between-song banter for the remainder of the show. City and Colour discussed his teenage years of working at a mall, starting at the Foot Locker and moving on up to work at the movie theater.

City and Colour showcased his lyricism throughout this afternoon’s set with the stripped down performance. City and Colour writes about his wife’s nightmares in “Fragile Bird,” his own inner darkness in “Two Coins,” and his relationship to his parents in this afternoon’s closer “Grand Optimist.” After his performance, he headed straight to the airport to fly home, today’s Free at Noon being his absolute last stop of his fall tour. If you missed him today, however, don’t fret. City and Colour will be returning to Upper Darby at the Tower Theater on December 8th. You can get tickets and show information at the XPN Concert Calendar.

Setlist
If I Should Go Before You
Lover Come Back
Fragile Bird
Two Coins
Northern Wind
Grand Optimist