Not that it was a surprise, but it always gives me a certain satisfaction to call a song before and have it actually live played. I'm referring to Jason Isbell's song "Dress Blues", a song he wrote for a high school friend that passed away while serving in Iraq. Usually a song with such a sad subject matter doesn't rock, and usually should not, but in this case his performance of the song seemed aggressively cathartic for him, and by extension for the audience as well.
Overall, I thought it was a great show. Not anything better than I ever have seen mind you, and the overall experience of the venue likely contributed to my enjoyment factor as much as the actual performance.
The Beat Kitchen is tiny. From the outside it appears to a common corner bar, which is mostly is, although once inside it's larger than would have thought. There's a decent bar and then a small-ish, though adequate space in back that comfortably fits 100+ people in front of the stage.It's dark, smells like beer and stale smoke. When I think of an ideal place to see a rock show, this is the template. Oh, and it's LOUD as hell. Just as it should be.
The first band, Deadstring Brothers started playing. From Detroit, they seem to be a hybrid of the Detroit Cobras and the Allman Brothers. Though this might sound like something awful, in fact, they pulled it off well.
They have ways to go before everything completely gels, but I'm a sucker for Hammond B-3 organ and steel pedal, plus the female lead singer could in fact sing. Rounding out the assortment was a solid guitar/male lead singer, a drummer with serious chops and a serviceable bass player. Oh, speaking of the the guy alternating on steel pedal and slide/bottle neck guitar was nothing short of adorable - and he rocked the shit out of every instrument he touched.
Now to Jason. Oh, Jason, how I miss your face. Having seen him play with his old band, the Drive-By-Truckers 7 or 8 times, seeing him again was like seeing a long lost friend. Most people likely wouldn't agree, but there's something about a guitar playing Rock Star from the South who smokes while ripping it up (I love how he puts his lit cig in the top string on the neck of his guitar) that makes me smile.
Thank God there are still people like this in the world.
Even better, he reprised his DBT-era routine of cracking a handle of Jack Daniels soon after the first song and passing it amongst his band mates, (as is he is likely to do - it was empty by the end of the set).
The backbone of Jason's set consisted of several well-known songs he wrote when with the Truckers (Decoration Day, Outfit, Never Gonna Change, etc), several songs from his forthcoming album (all of which are solid) as well as 2 covers, one of the Talking Heads "Psycho Killer" (whoa that rocked so hard!) and Tom Petty's "American Girl" (he introduced this song as "well, fuck it, why not?). All in all, I had a great time, although my ears we're ringing by the time the show ended, which was around almost 2AM.
This lyric is still stuck in my head: "...but there ain't much difference in the man I wanna be and the man I really am". Once a music critic remarked that Jason's voice is "so bad it's great", well, regardless, when he sung that line it was hard to disagree.
Overall, I thought it was a great show. Not anything better than I ever have seen mind you, and the overall experience of the venue likely contributed to my enjoyment factor as much as the actual performance.
The Beat Kitchen is tiny. From the outside it appears to a common corner bar, which is mostly is, although once inside it's larger than would have thought. There's a decent bar and then a small-ish, though adequate space in back that comfortably fits 100+ people in front of the stage.It's dark, smells like beer and stale smoke. When I think of an ideal place to see a rock show, this is the template. Oh, and it's LOUD as hell. Just as it should be.
The first band, Deadstring Brothers started playing. From Detroit, they seem to be a hybrid of the Detroit Cobras and the Allman Brothers. Though this might sound like something awful, in fact, they pulled it off well.
They have ways to go before everything completely gels, but I'm a sucker for Hammond B-3 organ and steel pedal, plus the female lead singer could in fact sing. Rounding out the assortment was a solid guitar/male lead singer, a drummer with serious chops and a serviceable bass player. Oh, speaking of the the guy alternating on steel pedal and slide/bottle neck guitar was nothing short of adorable - and he rocked the shit out of every instrument he touched.
Now to Jason. Oh, Jason, how I miss your face. Having seen him play with his old band, the Drive-By-Truckers 7 or 8 times, seeing him again was like seeing a long lost friend. Most people likely wouldn't agree, but there's something about a guitar playing Rock Star from the South who smokes while ripping it up (I love how he puts his lit cig in the top string on the neck of his guitar) that makes me smile.
Thank God there are still people like this in the world.
Even better, he reprised his DBT-era routine of cracking a handle of Jack Daniels soon after the first song and passing it amongst his band mates, (as is he is likely to do - it was empty by the end of the set).
The backbone of Jason's set consisted of several well-known songs he wrote when with the Truckers (Decoration Day, Outfit, Never Gonna Change, etc), several songs from his forthcoming album (all of which are solid) as well as 2 covers, one of the Talking Heads "Psycho Killer" (whoa that rocked so hard!) and Tom Petty's "American Girl" (he introduced this song as "well, fuck it, why not?). All in all, I had a great time, although my ears we're ringing by the time the show ended, which was around almost 2AM.
This lyric is still stuck in my head: "...but there ain't much difference in the man I wanna be and the man I really am". Once a music critic remarked that Jason's voice is "so bad it's great", well, regardless, when he sung that line it was hard to disagree.
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