Amos Lee comes home to Philadelphia for a sold out show at the Met

Amos Lee has always been one of Philadelphia’s most ruminative singer-songwriters. Whether your personal Lee catalog starts with 2016’s Spirits with its ’70s R&B-soaked stylings, or his slow burning, folksy, self-titled 2004 album, you’ll find the former teacher and bartender in deep situational, and literate sadness. That he comes with a big and smoothly soulful voice — equal parts Boz Scaggs and Bill Withers — makes the sourest medicine go down sweetly.

From the start of Saturday evening’s sold out show at the Met, Lee’s earthen folk-soulfulness focused (as does his 2018 album, My New Moon) on a level of dark self-reflection driven by the slaughter of students at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and the passing of his grandmother. The intimate “Hang On, Hang On,” in particular, touched on the desire to embrace and save that which we can’t. Lee ultimately seeks catharsis, hope and understanding for the world in their wake.

"I’m gonna sing away the pain, somewhere over the rainbow / I’m gonna sing away the pain, and pray that all your pain goes,” Lee crooned on the stewing "All You Got Is a Song” from My New Moon. Here, something sensual and romantic was pulled from the ashes of pain and loss — not just as a salve, but as something deeply curative, and in a broader cultural sense beyond the self. The clucking, plucky “Little Light” (“Some days I feel like I’m against the wall / But then I look at you standin’ strong and tall against it all”) had a healing vibe that you could feel wash over the audience. Then again, the crowd had just finished joining Lee as he mashed up his own Sound of Philadelphia-like “Flower” with the Five Stairsteps’ “Ooh Child.” And before that, Lee and his intuitive, tight ensemble had just seamlessly blended the songwriter’s own New Orleans-inspired “Spirit” with the Civil War-era hymn “Down by the Riverside” and George Michael’s “Faith.”

Lee’s live team and its keyboard playing musical director Jaron Olevsky provided the frontman, with a lustrous fullness and an instantly rolling groove on songs such as “Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight.” But, once the special guest addition of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (conducted by Andrew Lipke) hit the stage and joined the company, Lee’s sound and songs opened even brighter — the rise of “Violin,” the theatrical “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” tremor of “Jesus,” the alluringly dramatic uplift of “Colors,” and the mesmerizing discord of “Colors.” Lee and his band’s songs are always plush, even when played at their most spare and folky. This however, the strings and the overall glow of The Met’s staging, made the night into an event.