Across Five April Concerts, Gig Three: The Civil Wars

The Civil Wars: Joy Williams and John Paul White

Two years ago, Joy Williams and John Paul White performed for the first time as The Civil Wars. Last night, in front of a packed house at Calvin College, they celebrated their two-year anniversary with a superb set of original songs and covers that highlighted their gorgeous harmonies. They revived a rather lackluster Festival of Faith and Music.

Opening band The Sleep Experiments, winner of this year's Bandspotting contest, earned the right to open last night's show, and proceeded to live up to their name. Nice vocals, decent harmonies, but songs that drifted aimlessly. As with Thursday's artists, this Pittsburgh band made little connection with the audience, preferring to play with their looping effect boxes instead.

Thankfully, The Civil Wars hit the stage running, and were genuinely moved by the capacity crowd's enthusiastic response. Williams played the role of a sultry, flirtatious songstress while John Paul White countered with his crisp voice and supple guitar. In addition to playing their entire catalog, The Civil Wars breathed new life into covers of "You Are My Sunshine", the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back", and Smashing Pumpkins' "Disarm". As they sang "Disarm you with a smile," The Civil Wars did just that to their biggest audience yet.