ACL Review: Mandolin Orange

When it comes to Mandolin Orange, North Carolina duo Emily Frantz and Andrew Marlin aren’t afraid of a little peace and quiet. Their three albums and subsequent tours have been humble, muted affairs, and their Sunday afternoon set on the BMI stage at ACL Fest 2015 brought more of the same.

Tame in every sense of the word, the only thing saving the band from teetering completely into boring was good ol’ fashioned talent. A rotating combination of fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and vocal harmonies, Mandolin Orange’s gentle folk-Americana clocked in at under 45 no-frills minutes and charmed several hundred fans beneath a brutal sun.

“Old Ties and Companions” leads off spring’s Such Jubilee and began a sleepy set almost immediately affronted by blaring bass-bleed from a neighboring stage. That continued.

“I think our bass player went to the wrong stage,” Frantz deadpanned.

She and Marlin then began “That Wrecking Ball,” another new one, but “There Was a Time” from 2013’s This Side of Jordan landed a rare Frantz turn on lead vocals. The duo also offered a twang-imbued take on Gregory Alan Isakov’s melancholic “Amsterdam.”

Frantz and Marlin have a genuine, sweet chemistry onstage, which is how they can deliver lines like “I don’t need much of nothing, except for all your loving” (“Waltz About Whiskey”) with likable earnestness.