Julia Nunes with Nat Osborn

The band
Julia Nunes with Nat Osborn
The venue
Some guy named Ben's living room
Date
December 2, 2012


Julia Nunes plays ukelele and writes songs that are emotional, silly, honest and relatable. I'd seen her once before, at Common Ground this past July. Prior to that, I really only knew a handful of her songs from YouTube. That was enough for me to know she was impressive and her live performance only built on what I already knew.

A few weeks ago she embarked with Nat Osborn (who plays guitar and piano) on a living room tour after wrapping up a stint opening for Walk Off the Earth (another band I saw at Common Ground who, by the way, were super awesome). I'd never been to a house concert before and I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a much older crowd than I imagined and I certainly hadn't considered the place would be packed full of ukelele enthusiasts but that was what we got! It was a pretty cool mix of people in attendance.

If you've never heard Julia Nunes, you're missing out. If you've heard her but haven't heard her live, you're still missing out. She made a comment during the Q & A portion of the show that she never really thought her voice was that great and she said "people always say, 'no way, your voice is great!' So don't do that." So I didn't, but now I will. Her voice is great! The girl's got pipes. It's strong and really gorgeous. Nat's voice was also really great and they sounded amazing together. As they said, they've been playing these songs together for weeks and weeks so they better mesh well by this point, but I think it's more than that, too. He was a really lovely complement to her.

Beyond sounding super great, they were also funny and play well off each other. Julia did a great Q&A with some interesting questions. It's always cool to hear an artist talk about their songs and their history and Julia just seems to have a cool personality, very engaging and goofy, so that part was almost as fun as listening to them play.

I will always try to see Julia Nunes play when she comes to town. I was disappointed that I missed her on the Walk Off the Earth tour but the living room set made up for it for sure.


Check out Julia & Nat singing "O Come, All Ye Faithful".