There were so many different slices of San Jose’s nightlife present at San Pedro Square Market this past Saturday night. It wasn’t just because it was Save Alternative’s Daydream Nation’s kickoff show. Really, it was just the perfect venue for Saturday’s show.

There were different rooms for different people—a bar for people looking to hook up, a patio outside for friends wanting to hang out and chat, a place to eat for families and couples and of course a cozy spot to watch the bands. Everyone could hang out together under one roof and get exactly what they wanted. Since everybody seems to be hanging out at San Pedro Square anyway, hopefully they will be doing a whole lot more shows like this there in the future.

Ben Henderson was the main support for the concert. He put on yet another amazing show, performing most songs just him and his guitar, though he had the occasional accompaniment of a backing vocalist, a banjo player and a drummer on two songs. Henderson’s voice has gotten so fierce in the past year and a half that he can command a crowd all alone just as well, if not better, than a four piece rock band. This was Henderson’s farewell show before hitting the road for a month where he will be playing all over the country without a backing band, which explains the decision for him to not bring a full band to the San Pedro Square Market. He wanted to try his act out on a hometown crowd first.

The headliners, Dogcatcher, played a laidback blend of soul, jazz and melodic indie rock. When I interviewed them a few weeks ago they told me that they were a “rhythm section oriented band,” something not apparent on their folksy debut album, KILR, but live, it was crystal clear, this is a band that likes to groove. Even the songs on KILR were reworked to give it a dancey edge. The bass and drums locked into a solid groove while the guitar and organ layered sounds and harmonies over the top. Andrew Heine’s breathy vocals and introspective lyrics were the final touch, creating something artful and original.

Ben Henderson, one of San Jose’s most beloved singer-songwriters, is departing on an unexpected month long nationwide tour in June with New Jersey indie-folk band, River City Extension. The most unexpected part of it is that Henderson will be playing in River City Extension, filling in for their bass/banjo player, though he will get to open most of the shows with a solo set of his own music.

This was completely out of left field for Henderson, mostly because he only met the band one time. It was Billy O’Brien from Save Alternative that set this up. Originally from Jersey, O’Brien also manages River City Extension. When their bass/banjo player suddenly informed them that he couldn’t go on the road this summer, they weren’t sure what to do. O’Brien suggested Henderson. What really sold the band was seeing clips of his mastery of multiple instruments in his free-form funk outfit, Good Hustle. O’Brien told the band, “You guys need a bass player and Ben needs to go out on the road and promote his music.” It was perfect.

Henderson is playing his farewell show this Saturday at the San Pedro Square (a show that O’Brien just so happens to be putting on). He leaves for New Jersey this Tuesday so he can spend a month rehearsing with River City Extension (and maybe get to know them) before hitting the road.

River City Extension plays the Blank Club on June 17th. Ben Henderson plays solo at San Pedro Square on April 28th.

Ben Henderson – Summer Beast (live, in a living room)

River City Extension – Nautical Sabbatical:

Mountain View’s Dogcatcher will play at San Pedro Square Saturday, April 28, the first show in a monthly series called Daydream Nation that will last until August, and comes out of Bill O’Brien (of Save Alternative)’s efforts to showcase exceptional emerging Bay Area and San Jose artists.

It’s surprising to how much intense personal upheaval went into the gentle, jazz-inspired indie folk sounds of Dogcatcher’s debut record, KILR. 32-year old singer Andrew Heine wrote the record during a several-year stint as a bohemian artist in San Diego, which was a 180-degree change from his prior life. This dramatic shift in his life’s direction was a result of re-examining his life after going to Iraq as a Marine.

“I was a completely different person before. I went abroad completely conservative, a George Bush Republican. I came back a straight hippie,” Heine says.

The quiet intensity of KILR presents itself after several listens. Heine does not emote painful screams or make dramatic statements about Iraq, rather Heine exhibits the kind of self-reflection on the album where everything in his life is being looked at through a new lens.

Before joining the Marines, Heine got a degree in engineering and was planning to get a good paying job in the engineering field, while playing bass in jazz bands as a hobby. He was told this was the smart thing to do. The war gave him first-hand experience to not take everything told to him at face value and to look at things from his own perspective.

“We were told that we are the good guys and they’re the bad guys. We’re not necessarily 100% the good guy. The Iraqi are definitely not all the bad guy. Everyone’s the same. We’re all just people. That’s something I came back from Iraq with,” Heine says.