Who said a Wednesday night isn’t a good time for a great concert?
Not Nathaniel Rateliff who, along with the skill of his backing band The Night Sweats, served up a brisk-but-powerful 90-minute set of 22 songs at Petersen Events Center in Oakland.
Rateliff is the pride of the Denver music scene, with a little funk, a little folk and a little rock all blended together to make old-fashioned musical magic. Along with the Night Sweats, he took 2015 single “S.O.B.” to No. 8 on the Bilboard rock charts. Together, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats have released four studio albums, with 2024’s “South of Here” being their most recent.
Opening on Wednesday night were the Teskey Brothers, a surprising blues-rock band out of Melbourne, Australia, that played both restrained songs and meandering tunes full of solos — even harmonica ones. Their hour flew by in a soulful set.
Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats made their stage debut to the final strains of the Chambers Brothers’ 1966 soul classic “Time Has Come Today.” They kicked off with jaunty piano and Rateliff’s emotive growl on “David and Goliath,” the opening track from their newest album.
Greeting the audience, Rateliff said, “Take care of each other out here and we’ll do our best to take care of you up here, too.”
As a rock star, Rateliff doesn’t try to look too glamorous, but he is unselfconscious and charismatic. Strutting and dancing around the stage, he exudes a musical electricity that connects with the audience.
In turn, each of the instruments in the band, from keys to horns to bass and guitar, got their turn at attention. The horns on “I’m On Your Side” made the shouty chorus exhilarating; funky bass heralded the beginning of “Survivor;” and 1970s soul throwback “Look It Here” has plenty of room to allow the guitar to shine.
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The band blends genres effortlessly, but many of the songs sound comfortably retro. The addition of organ backing “A Little Honey,” along with the sensual sax at the chorus, gave it a throwback feel, especially with a wandering guitar weaving its way through the second verse.
Rateliff paused to tell an early-on Pittsburgh story. “I think it might’ve been 2013 maybe, we did our first Night Sweats tour with no merch, no record, really no business touring.”
One band member had left his passport, so they couldn’t move on to their next show in Toronto. “We made a … good time out of the five or six days we were here. We got lost in Jerry’s Records.”
He also mentioned an ill-fated show at Mr. Smalls Theater in Millvale. “Back then I was breaking tambourines onstage and I quickly stopped after one unfortunate incident where one of those tambourine chimes turned into a ninja star into a young man’s forehead. … I hope it didn’t leave a scar. You didn’t scar us, but y’all do have a special place in our hearts.”
Some songs did blend together, but one of the things that made Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats so goosebump-inducingly fun to see live is the way many of their songs built. From just a couple of instruments and forlorn lyrics in the verses, many found Rateliff — along with guitar, saxophones and keys — howling through pulse-pounding choruses and finales.
That was true of show highlight “Face Down in the Moment,” which started off simple with quiet instrumentation, Rateliff’s plaintive voice and dark blue stage lights but crescendoed with the whole band going all-out in the last seconds. That was followed by “Get Used To The Night,” another bluesy builder that brought Rateliff’s rough-hewn voice up to the rafters.
Introducing “South of Here,” the new album’s title track, Rateliff said, “It’s easy to get lost, even in the things you love, but I certainly feel my center up here onstage with you all, and with my family and my friends.”
The song itself was a little jangly, a little pensive and a promising preview of the album.
“Slow Pace of Time” prominently featured the smooth harmonies of the three-man horn section mixing with Rateliff’s voice like honey and lemon.
The show’s momentum notched up with “Remember I Was A Dancer” and “Hey Mama,” and the last pre-encore song was a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” that felt like a savvy choice, especially fitting with the battery of the Night Sweats’ songs that juxtapose upbeat music with sorrowful lyrics. And of course, the horn section blew the doors off to wrap up The Boss’ classic.
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The first of two encore songs was an organ-enhanced “S.O.B.” that had the whole arena whooping out all the “woah-oh-oh”s and Rateliff hollering the chorus so loud that they could probably hear it at the Point. Even though the song is a decade old, its lyrics about alcohol withdrawal still seem to pull an impressive rawness from Rateliff’s voice and stage presence.
The band capped off the night with delightfully Motown-inspired “Love Don’t,” the closing track from their 2021 album “The Future.” Before leaving the stage, Rateliff crowed out his thanks to the cheering crowd, thanking them for “a fun Wednesday night.”
That it sure was.