His Beautiful Horses

Christopher Owens pinches nerves at The Rockwell on Wednesday, 28 May 2025.

Sean Nicholas Savage shares some new tunes off his forthcoming LP The Knowing.

Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix

〰️

Hump Nights

〰️

Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️ Hump Nights 〰️

Hump Nights

〰️

Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix

〰️

Hump Nights 〰️ Ace the Quiz, Win the Tix 〰️

Sean Nicholas Savage

Sean Nicholas Savage

A delightful and occasionally dumbfounding pair of indie rockers rolled through the underground dwellings of The Rockwell on Wednesday night: Christopher Owens, of Girls fame, and Sean Nicholas Savage. There was no local opener.

I was tempted to describe the pair as “veterans” – as in “veteran indie rockers” – because pop music, like professional sports, is a machine whose tank gets filled with the blood, sweat, and tears sacrifices of the very young. Like sacrificial offerings to Moloch, bands form, find success or don’t, and mostly disappear, dying on the altar of youthful ideals and ambitions that might seem alien to them if they survive to middle age.

If you make it that far in the business, you’re a “veteran.” Never mind the way in which weirdo outliers like The Rolling Stones and Tom Brady stretch the term’s elastic. Owens and Savage, who entered the mainstream indie rock discourse as the Aughts turned to the Tens, have been on the merry go round. They’ve seen a few things and still burn with the passion to create music and find meaningful moments of connections with fans in live performance.

 

Christopher Owens

Christopher Owens

So much the better for us. Owens’ latest LP I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair is his best solo work since 2013’s Lysandre, dripping with his signature juxtaposition of deep pathos and light touch. And Savage, the quintessential artist’s artist, has a promising new album on the way called The Knowing.

Let’s circle back to the music/sports analogy because there’s one more thing that needs to be said about the show. Namely, that both artists seemed exhausted. Out of sorts. A hair’s breadth removed from being unable to perform. Professional touring musicians are like athletes with an unceasing schedule of away games. It’s tiring work traveling to each town.

Writers, painters, filmmakers are lucky in that way. They write the book, paint the picture, shoot the film, which is tough work, but once it’s done, it’s done. They can sit back and watch their objet d’art float around in the cultural fish tank, earning praise, blame, and hopefully making a little money.

While musicians do record studio albums, of course, they seem distinct from other kinds of artists insofar as they are expected to do the damn thing live. Over and over again. And if it doesn’t sound as good in Amarillo as it did in Albuquerque, fair or not, people start to grumble.

Touring is hard. Your body is an instrument you need to keep in tune if you want to be able to perform live. Sometimes that’s a bigger challenge than playing the actual gig.

Christopher Owens opened his set with a Spanish guitar-inflected instrumental, producing a beautiful lush acoustic tone while occasionally hitting some sour notes. His hands, so lovingly paid tribute with his latest single “Beautiful Horses,” were betraying him. Something to do with a bad night’s sleep and a pinched nerve.

The headlining set was full of high highs and low lows. Owens traded between guitar, harmonica, and synthesizer, searching for the magical combination of instrument and song that would remove the curse his body had placed on him that evening.

Like a veteran pitcher, who might be missing his fastball, he had a trick up his sleeve to dig out an improbable win. Owens polled the audience to see if anyone knew his songs enough to pick up his guitar duties. It’s the sort of half-stunt, half-necessity thing you hear about at Green Day concerts or Foo Fighter concerts, where you have an arena full of fans to pick from. At the modestly sized Rockwell? Slimmer pickings. So it stands as a testament to the intuitive aspect of Owen’s preternatural songwriting that a suitable fill-in was found.

Owens confined himself to harmonica and vocals for the remainder of the set while, irony of ironies, someone else’s “beautiful horses” admirably closed out the night on guitar. Sounded great. Like they say in the locker room after a surprise win, “It’s not how we planned it, but a W’s a W, and we’ll take it.”

 

---

Photo Gallery

---