William Wild with Josh Sorrells at the Pilot Light in Knoxville, Tennessee 8.2.25

a touchy evening of sorts

I believe the last time I saw William Wild perform was sometime in October, 2018 at The Outpost. Seeing as that’s been almost 7 years, it’s about time I caught another set from Garrett Sale (stage name William Wild) while they are back in town.

Gearing up for a two-week tour in September in support of the new album, Touchy, which came out on June 6th, Sale and friends came through with a moving and beautiful hometown show in a packed-out Pilot Light.

Many songs right off the new album were played —and to great applause. The set up was laid back with Sale sitting cross-legged with his guitar and microphone, an upright bass with a seriously beefy tone, one guy playing two synths, a drummer with very shimmery cymbals and a distinctly dry kit tone, and a saxophonist that melted away into the texture of some songs and cut through as the highlight of others with the way the high register of the brass tone weaved between Sale’s voice.

In many ways, every show is special. At a minimum, when I leave a show I feel the sense of having spent my time wisely, much like anyone would when experiencing something new. But most shows I feel elated to be present and to witness what an artist has in store for those who want to see.

This show left me speechless. From the opener, Josh Sorrells (of Easy Does It) on to the main act, the sound was nothing short of incredible. Smooth vocal trails, detailed guitar tones, everything glued together and dampened by the amount of people in the room. I couldn’t dream of a better night at The Pilot Light. Beautiful.

So, below I have some photos and audio recordings of both William Wild and Josh Sorrell’s sets. I recorded the sets on a Zoom H-1, and the photos were taken with my Canon R6 KMII with the Yongnuo 50mm f/1.4 lens + a Cinebloom 20% filter.

Enjoy!

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William Wild

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Josh Sorrells

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Well, that’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed the music and photos! If you’re looking for found media, please check out my page on Archive.org for the full list of digitized media. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message right here or drop a comment below. If you haven’t already, please check out the suggested posts below! or any of my other previous posts here. Thanks so much for checking out this week’s edition of Diptych!

See you soon!
—Forrest