Pete Sawyer Solo Acoustic
Pete Sawyer’s solo acoustic performances highlight the kinetic songwriting featured in his original project, Brightshine. The solo performance setting allows Sawyer’s songs to be heard in their original form and provides the listener a window into Pete’s distinctive songs, vocals and guitar work. He also fronts Pete Sawyer & The Left Hand Monkey Wrench Gang, a Grateful Dead tribute that has taken Northern California by storm in 2023, so his solo performances usually have a few Grateful Dead tunes thrown in as well as songs from Bob Dylan, The Band, REM, U2 and Dire Straits.
“Listening to the music on Brightshine’s new album the Wire, I am reminded that we are all wiser when we are dreaming. In the title track, The Wire, we find crack musicians and the uplifting vocals of Pete Sawyer and company, leading us hauntingly, lyrically, as if in a dream of heavenly desire fueled by Pete’s crystalline guitar solos. All is enhanced by a transportingly good band. In New Days, we “wheel and keel into the storm” and that feeling becomes real as we discover a new hope for the future and remember that everything turns on being with the ones we love. A luminous musical experience.”
—Sandy Miranda, KPFA (Berkeley, CA)
