2004 Concerts (Part Two)

Continuing the 2004 concert season in review…

City Market (Kansas City, MO)
1) O.A.R. (Opening Acts: Howie Day, Matt Nathanson): This is the epic show where Howie shows up for a nine P.M. outdoor gig wearing sunglasses and being unable to sing and play guitar at the same time. Or one at a time. Or form a cohesive sentence. This was his saying to the record label, “I hate the band. If you’re not going to let me play my music the way I want to I’m just going to get high all the time so there.” O.A.R. took the stage to U2’s “Beautiful Day” thus making the entire rest of their set a letdown from their intro music, which might be a first.

Uptown Theater (Kansas City, MO)
1) Guster and O.A.R. (Opening Act: Toothpick): Classic concert moment: Toothpick yells, “Because you know what man? Conformity sucks.” Which causes a huge cheer from the three guys behind me. Who I turn to and see that they are all wearing Abercrombie and Fitch shirts. If they were more ironic they would need to avoid magnets. Guster wins for the youngest crowd of the year; I think they were all sixteen-year-old girls. Apparently I am the only one who has a problem with that. O.A.R. is a band with one good eighteen-minute song and the rest of their set sounds like a bad Police cover band. They also have the weirdest choice in songs. They covered “Sunday Bloody Sunday” with no intro, no reason to the song and really no interpretation of it. It sounded like any bar band doing the song if they had more talent and a good sound system.
2) John Hiatt (Opening Act: David Lindley): Killer tunes by an unbelievable songwriter. For this concert I was seated in the balcony, which after seeing so many shows from the front of the stage made me feel like I was on Mars. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I actually saw a show at an arena one of these days.
3) Nickel Creek (Opening Act: Howie Day): This time it was just Howie on stage, looping the hell out of everything and spending a quarter of his set grinning like an idiot as he did nothing but listen to all of the music loop around him. I saw this after the Ashlee Simpson debacle but you can’t fault him because all of this music is his. Best show I saw of his in the year. Nickel Creek is pop bluegrass and is a really good fun band but at some point it is the same thing as Bela Fleck; I recognize that there is technical mastery going on but I just can’t take two hours of fiddle solos.

Beaumont Club (Kansas City, MO)
1) Big Head Todd and the Monsters: Remember the Simpsons episode where Bachman Turner Overdrive was playing? Where they start playing new material and Homer yells, “Just play Taking Care of Business. No new crap. Just Taking Care of Business. And get to the Working Overtime part.” That was this show. Band playing new material for a crowd who couldn’t care less. Here’s a new song. Silence. Here’s Resignation Superman. Watch the yuppies and the aging hipsters cheer. I’m not saying I agree with it and I’m guilty of it but that’s what I remember (and I’m seeing them again in a few weeks).
2) Lucinda Williams (Opening Act: The Bottle Rockets): Really cool show by Lucinda who is more of a poet than a songwriter. But man can she belt out a song with the best of them. One of my CD recommendations to everyone on the planet is “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”, which you need to own if you ever want to claim you understand music.
3) Gomez (Opening Act: Augie March): Man, Gomez is cool. There wasn’t a big crowd for the show (actually, it was criminally small given how talented the band is) but they can just make you feel alive. I’m also a sucker for any band where the lead singer is whoever feels like it at the time. My one complaint is another one of my concert pet peeves: the middle aged white guy whistling at full volume straight into my ear. Look, if you’re a sixteen-year-old girl and the Beatles are on stage, maybe that makes sense. But you’re an idiot with high cholesterol who drives a Volvo so just sit down and shut up. Dumbass.

Grand Emporium (Kansas City, MO)
1) Yo La Tengo: Ah, back to the days of good old indie rock. With songs that don’t exactly make sense or even have a melody but are cool nonetheless. I never really got into the noise rockers like Sonic Youth but this was a fun Saturday night, watching the band just pound away like there was no tomorrow and making guitars do things that I had never imagined. Plus, it was my first time at the new, cleaned, homogenized, fun size portioned, completely ruined Grand Emporium.
2) The Neville Brothers: I’ve already written about this show in the blog. They’re showing their age, which is acceptable given that Art Neville has been touring for 50 years, and they’ve made up for it by bringing in Ivan Neville and a few other Neville children and grandchildren. Music was good, though like the Bela Fleck show as well I’ve discovered that placing aging hippies in a confined space is not always good from an olfactory point of view.
3) Charles Robison: Good Texas bar rock from one of the best out of Austin. I’ve now seen in concert Charlie, his brother Bruce, his sister-in-law Kelly Willis and one of these days I’ll probably see his wife Emily who is in the Dixie Chicks. When people talk about the close knit Austin music scene that is what they mean.

Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club (Kansas City, MO)
1) Patrice Pike (Opening Act: Kristie Stremmel): Absolutely true story. All I knew about Patrice Pike before going to the show was a one paragraph preview that I read in the paper calling her a good voice out of Austin, which was enough to make me go to the show. Get there, pay my cover and look around and see that it is 90% women. Which is cool until I realize just why 90% of this crowd is made up of women. And in my infinite wisdom I go, “Oh well, I paid my cover. Let’s see what happens next.” Which turned out to be an excellent set by Patrice with some killer songs from her old band Sister Seven. But yeah, I did feel that I was how should you say, unnecessary, to a large part of the audience.
2) Richard Buckner: Originally, after this show I was going to run to Lawrence and catch the last half of Mary Lou Lord’s set the same night. Until I realized that I was meeting with the CFO at 7:30 the next morning and felt at the time that my job mattered more than seeing two shows in the same night. Answer might be slightly different today.
3) Jack Ingram’s Acoustic Motel: I had seen Jack a few times before but this show was just amazing. He had a set backdrop that looked like the worst, seediest motel you had ever laid eyes on and he had it set up to look like he was sitting on the edge of a bed. He then proceeded to play two hours where he would stop singing half way through a song and just start telling stories and jokes while continuing to play the melody of the song. It was the complete opposite of trying to be a rock star, it was just a guy sitting around, shooting the breeze and sharing a couple of stories and a few songs. He also provided one of the cornerstones to my concert going experience, “I don’t mind if you guys talk at my shows. You guys are paying me to do something that I’d do for free so you can do whatever you feel like. But, remember that you’ve also paid to have a good time and if someone is ruining your good time by talking while your listening go ahead and tell them to shut up.”
4) Pieta Brown and Bo Ramsey: Whenever I see Pieta Brown in concert my life improves. I meet interesting people, my mood lightens, and good things just seem to happen. That is probably the best compliment I can give anybody.
5) Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys (Opening Act: the Pembertons): See entry 13 for my discussion on Rex and the Boys.
6) Martin Zellar and Brent Best: After a long time I’ve listening to Martin (who I knew of through the most roundabout fashion as it included both a) the first girl I ever fell in love with and b) a longtime drinking buddy) I finally got to see and meet the man. Did a great combination of his solo stuff as well as old Gear Daddies tunes. Talked to him after the show and thanked him for all of the music over the years and he was genuinely touched. He joked that it’s knowing that there are guys like me who will go to shows and listen to and appreciate his music that brings him back out on the road every year. Super nice guy, stayed and drank with a group of us in the crowd for hours after the show. Completely ignoring the fact that his set was followed by a Burlesque show. I kid you not. Best double bill ever in my mind.
7) Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men (Opening Act: The Moaners): Wasn’t able to get back to Fitzgerald’s for the American Music Festival this year but getting to hear “Fourth of July” in late June was close enough.
8) John Dee Graham: John is finally getting some of the respect he deserves after playing guitar in so many great bands in Austin. He’s just coming into his own as a songwriter and a performer, a little later in life than most but he’s got a lot of great music out there that people should check out. While Martin was followed by a Burlesque show, he was followed by a band called “Sex Slaves” thus leading to the great line, “We’ll play a few more songs and then the Sex Slaves will be out here.”
9) Eleni Mandell (Opening Act: Jen Appel): I’ve been told that if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, which means I can’t talk about the opening act. Eleni is cool and sultry and I should probably listen to her CD more than I do.
10) Robbie Fulks (Opening Act: The Gaslights): I think Robbie is getting crazier and funnier as he gets older. Not to many people would play Shania Twain songs just to simultaneously a) piss off the Shania fans and b) piss off the other half of the crowd that hates Shania. For people who want to get into alt-country, Robbie is a good place to start. Lots of fun country songs tied in with a lot of classic, old-timey stuff. He’s one hell of a guitar player to boot. And will cover ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” if the show is really going well.
11) The Meat Purveyours (Opening Acts: Tony Ledeschi, The Gaslights): Like about half the bands I see, there music is available on Bloodshot Records. No real reason I’m saying this other than hoping they find the mention on a Google search and decide to start sending me free CDs.
12) Michelle Anthony (Opening Act: Spill): Michelle is a Milwaukee girl who is originally from Kansas City who has gotten some good press recently. Worked with Jay Bennett (formerly of Wilco) and got a full page write-up in No Depression. Which as Chris the Bartender at Davey’s joked with me, “Means a lot to the two of us who read No Depression from cover to cover and nothing to anyone else.” But I always support people starting out. Good show even if I was one of the few people in the crowd who didn’t technically know her.
13) Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys (Opening Act: Outlaw Jim and the Whiskey Benders): The answer to the question “What did EC do on New Year’s Eve?” If you’re going to be by yourself on New Year’s Eve you might as well spend it with the Misery Boys, singing tales of loss and woe and ruined relationships and alcohol and well, whatever else you might want to sing about. All done in an incredibly upbeat and funny manner. Just a show where you get to be reminded that everyone has been in the same situation that you are in so don’t worry about it, laugh it off and move on. Something I needed to hear on Friday.

So there is the list. 40 shows in one year. We’ll see how many I can bring myself to this year.