SETLIST
1. Lazy Guy (acoustic)
2. Dunk You in the River (acoustic)
3. Pinball Song (acoustic)
4. Barrel Chested
5. Can't Stay Sober
6. That is All
7. I'll Be Damned
8. Stupid Words (new song)
9. Billy Pritchard
10. Engine Joe
11. Front Porch
12. Sister Beams (new song)
13. Gimme Back My Dog
14. Stumblin'
15. Haze of a Drink
16. (I Can Tell) Your Love is Waning
17. Sober Song
18. Placemat Blues
ENCORE
19. Rockin' in the Free World
Great, great show - easily the best of the 4 S-Bone shows I've seen so far. I can't think of better place to see these guys than in a crowded Midwestern bar on a Saturday night. Well, maybe a crowded Texas bar on a Saturday night, but for some reason these guys sound distinctly Midwestern, if not downright Replacement-esque. Indeed, they've been known to refer to these here parts as the "Motherland." Hell, they do up "Can't Hardly Wait" purdy nice (although not quite as nice as Marah does). Anyhoo, it was a deliciously intense, all barrels hittin', rock-with-a-capital R show.
It was our first night out after the horror of last Tuesday and it felt pretty damn good. I had no problem paying for the overpriced beer - several times. The crowd also seemed very enthusiastic and upbeat (and, by the end of the night, pretty juiced up). Brent was quite engaging, if not downright charming, and thanked everybody numerous times for "coming out." At one point he mentioned that they had been going crazy holed up in a hotel room, which I took to mean that this may have been their first show after...
The show itself was pretty much perfect-well paced, very passionate, tight as a drum. The 1-2-3 kick-off punch of the acoustic set worked like a charm (Jess had the banjo smokin'), the 2 new songs sound even better than a few months ago and it was great to hear some "Crow Pot" gems that I'd never heard live before, obviously done in honor of the swell new New West re-release. It was nice to see them available at a reasonable price after the show compared to the high bucks the originals are currently commanding in the collector's market. It's a solid album that deserves to be heard more.
I like the way Brent's songs really grow on you after a spell. They're populated with interesting characters and full of sentiments and emotions that are easy to relate to. He's got a nice eye for detail and narrative structure. His settings and themes are often familiar - lost love, dead-end jobs, alcohol, the saloon as metaphor for life itself-but there's something in most of his songs that prevent them from being trite or corny. The "bar room troubadour" shtick of a lot of what used to be called "alt-country" has almost become a cliché, but Brent's songs transcend the stereotype. Ryan Adams has tried to wander down this path a time or two, but he's never written a song as good as "I'll Be Damned," Haze of a Drink" or "That is All" (whose chorus - "Everything you thought was right is wrong today" - seemed positively eerie in light of recent events).
Saw lots and lots of familiar faces and there was a lot of socializing going on. There was a definite need to bond and connect, to talk or pat somebody on the back, or give up a hug. Large Soul Asylum and Jayhawks contingents were showing up after an outdoor bash out at Canterbury which helped contribute to the almost party-like atmosphere. BTW, the 'hawks gamely soldiered on as a power trio (!!) due to Jen and Steven McCarthy being stranded due to cancelled flights. I asked Perlman if this was a "new direction", and he wryly commented, "No, more like an old direction."
The highlight of the show - and one of the most powerfully emotional moments I've witnessed at a rock show in a long, long time - was the encore. After rippin' it up for 80 minutes or so the band left, appearing to be totally spent. After they ducked downstairs, the crowd very quickly started chanting "U-S-A, U-S-A..." The band stumbled up after a few minutes, Brent commented under his breath, "yeah, we agree" and they launched into a song that, in retrospect, seemed all too obvious - "Rockin' in the Free World." Everybody was jumping up and down, screaming, singing along, completely getting lost in the moment. They absolutely nailed it - rivaling some of the very best versions done by the master himself (Neil's incendiary 1989 SNL version comes immediately to mind, as do the angry, all-too-apropos versions done on the Crazy Horse tour in the Spring of 1991, during the early days of our last War).
There was no way that they could top this, so they didn't even try. A sobering (how's that for irony with these guys?) end to a show that many won't soon forget.
"There's colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign
on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin'
we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan,
but I am to them
So I try to forget it,
any way I can."
Monday, September 17, 2001
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