Paleo and Garrett Pierce at Sophia's

The cozy balcony at on Saturday wasn’t as crowded as it has been in previous weeks, but the lack of people stepping on toes allowed the emphasis to be on the evening’s music: front men with great lyrics.

The soft purple lighting and the faintest summer breeze made for the perfect ambience as Iowa-based Paleo and Davis’ own Garrett Pierce took the stage and showered the audience with their stories.

Pierce, who is no stranger to the Sophia’s live-music crowd, cracked jokes like “Ever seen trucker grenades on the side of the road? This song is not about that.” And, while discussing the title track from his upcoming album, “City of Sand”: “It’s about living in San Francisco and having kind of a bad time”, he said, tuning his guitar. “But—dance to it.”

Though Pierce and his guitar were only accompanied by his drummer, Timothy James Wright, the combination of wailing—and at times smolderingly quiet—vocals and biting drum beats made for an immensely moving experience.

When he finished, he implored everyone to stick around for Paleo, saying that the singer, David Andrew Strackany, was his favorite lyricist of all time.

As everyone buzzed about and made their way to the bar for their next drink, even Kevin Wan, the owner of Sophia’s, made it clear that one should expect lyrical genius from Paleo. “Have you heard this guy before?” he asked. “When he was on tour last year, he wrote a song every day.”

When the three men of Paleo walked onstage to set up, it was Strackany who stood out the most with his mass of long curly brown hair, short skinny jeans and black Les Paul with a sticker that read, “Give up and die.”

His lyrics were profound in the way that makes you do an auditory double-take. On the surface, they’re bizarre (“I do my hair the way the demons like.”) and shrouded by the sound of his shrill voice, almost like he’s testing you to see if you’ll keep listening—until suddenly he delivers a line so perfectly poignant that you realize he’s a master poet who happens to be playing guitar, too.

He pinned down metaphors to describe every idiosyncrasy of “one end of love to the other end and back” and picked apart a woman’s complaints: “Your whole life has been a race between a pillow and a pretty soft place.”

The live music will continue on the Sophia’s balcony next weekend with New Heirlooms on Friday and Generationals on Saturday.