avetts.jpgThere’s no better way to hear live music than in a field. Granted, you don’t get the same acoustic excellence you would in carefully crafted theaters and symphony halls. But, if the weather’s right and the band is hot, there’s a community vibe that makes it all worthwhile. One of the best places in Seattle to get the music-in-a-field fix has been at Woodland Park Zoo. This summer’s ZooTunes concert series has welcomed all manner of musicians, from the groove of Boz Scaggs to the flat-out funk of Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, to the classic country croon of Emmylou Harris. But, ZooTunes’ summer concert series drew to a close Wednesday night with North Carolina’s premier progressive folk ensemble the Avett Brothers.

Headed up by opener Shawn Mullins—with his schmaltzy love songs and talking verses—the Avetts were a fitting closer for a summer of versatile performances. Who else could possibly switch mid-song from sentimental longing to bouncing banjo-thrash? Indeed, the band is incredibly physical about their playing, and their songs are as athletic as they are sincere. The only drawback about a ZooTunes show is that they have to shut down by 8:30. The Avett Brothers could’ve gone on for another hour, and that would’ve been just fine.

They kicked off their set with “Murder in the City,” a choice selection from their latest Gleam II EP. The two brothers played the beginning of the set alone, before the rest of the band lept onstage for a raucus turn on crowd favorite “Shame.” Suddenly, the looming dark clouds and late-August air chill seemed irrelevant, and all that mattered was the one collective rhythmic pulse of the band onstage. Twirl-and-bounce hippie dancers gathered in diagonal congregations fanning off from both corners of the stage like a pair of wings. Cellist Joe Kwon picked up his instrument and plucked it like a guitar, dancing about his two-feet of stage space like some hard core axe shredder.

The band—recently signed to Columbia Records—pulled chiefly from its Gleam EPs and breakthrough full-length Emotionalism, although there were a small handful of selections from a forthcoming disc on which they’re currently working. “Solomon” was a party of a song, while “Standing With You” worked a much more subdued, sentimental angle. Possibly the best moment of the evening was “My Last Song to Jenny,” which saw Seth Avett alone onstage for the evening’s quietest moment. After milking his longest, highest note for all it was worth, Avett announced, “This is the last verse. When I wrote it, I didn’t mean it. But I mean it now. Took a few years.” The audience cheered hard, and he leaned into the lyric: “I want to live, and I want you to live happy and free…”

After a vaguely lengthy break for enthusiastic applause and hollering, the Avetts returned for a two-song encore. They capped the night off with “Salvation Song,” beckoning their hugely appreciative crowd to sing along. Even though nobody really complied, that didn’t stop them from singing and playing their faces off. Given the song’s rowdy, heartfelt refrain, it seemed a perfect way to seal out a summer of ZooTunes:

We came for salvation
We came for family
We came for all that’s good that’s how we’ll walk away
We came to break the bad
We came to cheer the sad
We came to leave behind the world a better way