I pulled up to Baby’s All Right ten minutes after doors. As I fiddled with my wallet to show ID at the door, I noticed a small crowd gathered by a white van on the curb. My curiosity piqued. I walked over in time to see Baird rush out of the back door with a suitcase in tow, quickly entering a side door into the venue to make a late sound check. I walked in and ordered a pint of Guinness at the bar before posting up in the stage room. I probably Shazamed every song the house played before the set.
After a bit of waiting, the guy at the door called everyone in for the opening act, Native Son. The band is the project of frontman Ano Chrispin, and playing along with him were a bassist, a guitarist, a violinist, and a laptop. The music was reminiscent of Tom Misch, BASECAMP, a touch of Yves Tumor, and a dash of Prince. On one song, Chrispin crooned over mellow guitar chords, legato violin, and breakbeats, and on the next he growled over scuzzy rock chugs. Someone in the crowd (a friend of his, I’m sure) heckled Ano to promote his new project, Toy Circuit, which he did briefly before moving on to the next song in the setlist. Having never heard of Native Son before last night, I made sure to add his new album to my Bandcamp cart ahead of my Bandcamp Friday cash out. 
After a brief intermission, Baird and his band got on stage to set up their instruments. The lineup was composed of Baird on vocals and guitar, Buck on the drums, Ciara Tolliver on keys, and a cassette deck playing tape loops and backing tracks. “I didn’t feel like using a laptop,” Baird explained. I’ve been following Baird as a musician since hearing his beats on Soundcloud as Flybear a decade ago. Back in my day as a college radio DJ, I interviewed Baird following the release of Birdsongs, Vol. 2, and in the following years he’s concluded the Birdsongs mixtape trilogy, produced songs with Brockhampton, started a jam band with his brother called The South Hill Experiment (a project which wrapped their own album trilogy this year with EARTHBREAKS and whose demos were sampled by The Alchemist for Danny Brown’s 2023 album, Quaranta). In short, it’s been a productive few years for the Baltimore native.
The show’s setlist was an eclectic collection of reworked old classics from the first Birdsongs EP, some post-trilogy singles (“Angel Hair” and “Since August”), and (more excitingly) unreleased new material. He played new songs introduced as “Shadow Notes” and “Holes In My Hands,” showing off the evolution of his sound with a new emphasis on live instrumentation. But his origins as a beat-maker were still present in the music’s DNA. Around the middle point of the concert, Baird brought out cassette tapes with backing tracks and beats to lay the foundation for a couple of reworked older tracks. As he loaded a cassette into the deck, he gave a disclaimer that there were church worship music rehearsals on it that he hadn’t noticed before recording over them. He let the lo-fi church band play while he tuned his guitar. At one point the audience started clapping along to the tape-hiss-saturated choral hymns accompanied by guitar and cajon. It was an interesting pairing with Baird’s usual style of electronic-tinged indie rock.
For a couple of songs, Baird brought out the full live band to play newly arranged versions of classics from his back catalog. Despite Baird explaining that they had only squeezed in one rehearsal before the show, they sounded tight, a testament to the players’ virtuosity. The set concluded with Baird reading slam poetry while the band jammed behind him. Standing with the lyrics on a piece of paper in front of him, Baird recited a stream of consciousness that ended with the words, “free your mind, your ass will follow.” I’m not sure what exactly he meant by that, but I resonated with it nonetheless.
This was my first time seeing Baird play live, and I enjoyed hearing a retrospective of my favorite songs from his older discography interspersed with a taste of his forthcoming output. I left excited to hear what will come next from the multi-faceted artist.