Kevin Morby rocks a sold-out Ottobar on April 20, 2018. (Photo by David LaMason)

Kevin Morby is troubadour who is cut from the same cloth as Lou Reed and Bob Dylan with a bit of Will Oldham or even Jason Molina (of whom Kevin and Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield covered recently). Last year, he released City Music on the Dead Oceans label. Last Friday, he performed to a sold-out Ottobar.

Kevin Morby was accompanied by his band — Meg Duffy on guitar (who also opened as Hand Habits), Cyrus Gengras on bass, and Nick Kinsey (of Elvis Perkins in Dearland and Kinsey).

Baltimore has a special place in Kevin’s heart. As he mentioned from the stage, “It reminds me of Kansas City. It really does.” From the liner notes to “Baltimore,” a single that was released last year, “I love Baltimore. It is a city with a giant heart and has remained one of my favorite places to keep returning to on tour.” And it really showed, from the steady opener “Singing Saw” to the dual harmonizing guitars of “City Music” and then to rockers “I Have Been to the Mountain” and the Ramones-inspired “1234.”

Kevin switched up a couple of times for both piano/keyboards and then for a couple of songs it was just him and acoustic guitar — playing the aforementioned “Baltimore” to a huge applause. The band came out for the encore of “Dorothy” from 2016’s Singing Saw.

Here are some photos of Kevin Morby performing at the Ottobar on April 20, 2018. All photos copyright and courtesy of David LaMason.