A man can change a lot in three years.
So even if you were crazy about him in 2014, there are no guarantees for how well he'll hold up come 2017...or even whether you'll still react to him as you did originally.
You have to go see him to find out.
When I first saw that St. Paul and the Broken Bones were playing the National, I did nothing. My fabulous first experience seeing the band on a sweaty late June day in 2014 outside on Brown's Island had set a high bar for what this soulful group from Alabama was capable of and I wasn't entirely sure it would translate to a larger stage indoors.
But then Mac wanted to go and she's never been to the National, so one night after we were leaving the Gypsy Room next door, we stopped by the National's box office and scored two tickets.
Okay, then, I was going to see what St. Paul had become with three more revolutions of the sun. I'm probably not exactly the same, so why should he be?
Then she messaged me today saying she was feeling poorly but was still hoping to attend. By the time she picked me up, she had rallied a bit but was nowhere near 100%, so we kept things simple.
Smart concert-goers know to park once and party twice, so after stashing her car in my usual parking space (I have one for every venue I frequent), we moseyed over to Greenleaf's Pool Room (also a first for her) for supper amid the manicured pool-playing masses.
Without conferring, we chose the exact same order: housemade tomato soup, bar toast oiled and grilled, then layered with chimichurri, grilled mushrooms and garlicky sauteed greens, washed down by pomegranate lemonade and followed by today's dessert du jour: a plump cognac truffle in a honeycomb sugar nest with raspberry puree and toffee brittle.
She saw the meal as a good source of Vitamin C along with the immunity-boosting powers of garlic and pomegranate, while I saw it as an ideal simple supper. Win/win.
The music wasn't just to my liking, it might well have been a mix tape of bands I've seen in concert as one after another - Keane, the Killers, the Fray, Muse - played, an aural document to my show-going history.
I still can't seem to remember to allow enough extra time to go through all the new security precautions - metal detectors, X-ray machines, bag checks - at the National, meaning we arrived after Aaron Lee Tasjan and his band had begun playing.
Mac and I have a history with Aaron because he was the opening band when we saw Lydia Loveless in Charlottesville in November and we both liked his droll humor, smart songwriting and killer guitar chops, but little did we know that we were going to hear most of the same stage banter (the blotter acid incident that produced four folk-rock songs) we'd heard four months ago.
No matter, the songs are still solid.
His humor was most definitely still in evidence, like when he introduced himself as, "Aaron Lee Tasjan. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly." Or after announcing the next song would be "Success," saying, "Gotta write what you know."
One story new to me was about being at a female-heavy Cat Power show and one of the few other men besides Aaron yelled out, "The bitch can't sing," causing other women in the audience to look at Aaron to see if he was going to deal with the offender.
"No, I'm not gonna deal with him, but I will go home and write a folk-rock revenge song," he told them before playing us, "You Know, the Bitch Can't Sing" with such tongue-in-cheek lyrics as, "She had a tattoo that was meaningful."
Aren't they all, assuming you ask the tattooed person?
After his set ended, a guy standing behind me asked about seeing me writing in a notebook, perplexed at why I was using such an analog method and to what purpose. I soon learned that the foursome he was with was from Harrisonburg, all worked at JMU and were in town for the night for the show, having already been to Lucy's and Hardywood.
Unlike me, none of them had seen St. Paul and the Broken Bones, which I would guess was also the case for 95% of the people in the room.
At one point, singer Paul told the wildly enthusiastic crowd that they'd only played here once "and none of you were at that show, were you?" I raised my hand to differ and the guy I'd just met pointed and said, "She was!"
How quickly they forget.
Their set began with Paul in a purple choir robe which he threw off James Brown-style to kick off their set of soulful songs matched by assured yet controlled dance moves.
When last I'd seen him, he'd worn a dark blue suit with white shirt with French cuffs and white shoes, but tonight's ensemble was a dusty mauve blazer with a green pattern ("looks like my Grandma's couch," he said) and I was nowhere close enough to see if his cuffs were French or otherwise.
Another change was that the former septet had added a sax/flute player to the horn duo of trombone and trumpet. Paul's ease with the microphone as prop - the cord in his teeth, for cryin' out loud - was even more polished, if that's possible, than last time.
Barely a third of the way into their set, Mac looked at me and said she felt so lousy she was leaving. I didn't mind walking home, but I was terribly sorry she was going to miss the rest of their set.
Because the stage was bigger, Paul spent more time prowling it as he sang or maybe he's just cut back on his dance moves after so much touring. Oh, they're still there, but a tad less frequently and now a dramatic hand or arm gesture subs for full-on grooving.
Not so yours truly, although by that time, the sold-out crowd was shoulder to shoulder and every other move resulted in brushing up against a stranger. If someone begrudges me a little honest dancing in place, the problem is theirs, not mine.
Things got slow and sexy for a while and if there'd been room, there might've been slow dancing, but instead we made do with swaying.
Now that the band has a second album, they no longer need to cover Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding like they did 3 years ago, but even newer material still carries that retro soul vibe of a Muscle Shoals session with blaring horns, organ-sounding keys and a killer rhythm section driving it all.
Was tonight's show as magical as that $5 June night had been?
How could it be? Besides that the band is more polished and confident now, we weren't outside on a humid, sticky night listening to soul music accompanied by the sounds of the James river and a passing train. When you lose the sweat, you lose something.
Not saying I didn't enjoy tonight's show plenty, but there's something to be said for a girl's first experience with a band or a man. That's all I'm saying.
I can't sing and I have no meaningful tattoos. I'm saying it because you gotta write what you know.
Showing posts with label Aaron Lee Tasjan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aaron Lee Tasjan. Show all posts
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Sunday, November 13, 2016
I Wanna Be On Your Mind
The man in the preacher hat summed up my evening. "Lydia Loveless is up next. I love getting to say that. What a Saturday night!"
It was indeed a Saturday night I won't soon forget.
Back during the halcyon days of summer, I'd bought a $12 ticket to see Lydia at the Southern in Charlottesville and tonight a favorite couple came by to scoop me up and ferry me there.
Our first stop was Public Fish & Oyster, where we encountered a full house and no availability until 9:30 unless we were willing to sit on the patio.
I had only one question and the answer was yes, they had heaters out there, so we joined a growing group of poor planners like ourselves to eat dinner outside on the coldest evening in months.
Cozying up to a heater and with a borrowed blanket from the restaurant that shared the patio (honestly, we thought the blankets were Public's), we managed quite nicely, thank you.
Food-wise, we were in high cotton. From the blackboard offerings of East coast oysters, we had the two saltiest bivalves: PEI's Canada Cups and Rhode Island's Beaver Tails, the former the briniest and thus my fave.
When our affable server Cameron warned us that there were only two orders left of tonight's special, I immediately reserved one because how often does a person get offered wolf fish cheeks with remoulade, vinegary cucumber slices, jalapeno hush puppies and corn on the cob, all on the same plate?
Just to be sure, I also got fried brussels sprouts with a stellar apple slaw (even though brussels had a superfluous apostrophe on the menu and menu mistakes like that grate on this reader's eye), tasted a damn fine clam chowder and politely declined rockfish because I was full (room was found for chocolate torte, but that's a different story).
Over dinner, my hatted friend shared that she'd heard from long-time friends - a couple in Madison County also en route to tonight's show - who'd started today by making a fire, laying in bed and listening to Lydia's new album on vinyl.
If there could be a finer start to a day...well, I'm listening.
By the time we rolled out, the patio was completely full and the temperature had dropped ten degrees. November, you can be unpleasant.
But the Southern was as warm and toasty as the name suggests and we arrived early enough that the doors hadn't yet opened, so when they did, we bolted to claim spaces on the raised seating that surrounds the poles in the room.
It's not my first Southern rodeo by any stretch and I know those structures make fine places to stand once things get crowded.
The musician in our group immediately commented on the '70s-era drum kit onstage (the bass drum had a picture of Paul Lynde on it), the abundance of guitars (Fenders, Gibsons and a Silvertone) and had an epiphany when he spotted the Fender amps ("That's why the guitar tones sound so good on the record!").
We were amazed that the show wasn't sold out or even close to it, although it was at least diverse with everything from UVA students to plenty of Baby Boomers and skewing heavily male. Our collective opinion was that it would've sold out in Richmond.
Opener Aaron Lee Tasjan came out looking like a 21st century Hazel Moates - or at least that was our take after seeing "Wise Blood" last night - in a cream-colored "preacher's hat" over long, straight hair, a dried blood-colored jacket, a black shirt buttoned all the way up and tight pants, accompanied by Brian from Waco, a superb guitar player.
They give you loose gravel and call it rock steady
Explaining that in Omaha, someone had given him a napkin full of acid, he said he'd gone home, taken it and written four folk rock songs, including one called "Little Movies," which didn't have a particularly folk-like bent, but was a solid song anyway. Ditto "Memphis Rain"
One of these days I'm gonna lose my mind
Can't wait to see what that helps me find
His songs were smart and literate (how often do you hear a reference to poet laureate Phillip Levine?) and sometimes just plain clever, like "Twelve Bar Blues" about 12 different bars, comparing their strengths and weaknesses.
When an annoying woman right up front began trying to get his attention, he told her, "Don't start with me. It's been a long week and I smell terrible and you don't want what I got."
Always believe a man in a preacher hat.
Aaron and Brian closed out by rocking hard to "Success" before Aaron rhapsodized about how fortunate we were to be spending Saturday night with Lydia Loveless.
Duly noted.
The stage was reset for the headliners, PBRs were placed at each station and the band came out. Lydia's look said it all: a coonskin hat, a red plaid sweater, fur-lined boots and silvery blue eye shadow and her first words - "Illustrious intro here. Hello!" - said the rest.
"It's hard to feel rock and roll in a sweater, so I opted not to wear pants, just tights because I live in a van." I'm guessing that despite that, she didn't smell as terrible as Aaron claimed he did, but I have no proof of that.
Besides, odor issues aside, her leather guitar strap with her name burned into it was totally badass. And the woman has a voice that rivals Neko Case's for purity, nuance and my willingness to listen to absolutely anything she's singing.
After beginning with the provocative "European," they moved on to the bruised emotions of "To Love Somebody" as the smell of weed permeated the air, making us wonder how that even happens in a public place.
With "Real," she mined the authenticity of her past and the honesty of that hardest of goals - successful relationships - and by that point, there were enough tall people in front of us that it was time to stand on our seats. From that perch, we had a terrific view of Lydia and the four musicians with her, all of whom looked markedly older.
The bassist was a hair flipper, constantly whipping his long, curly hair to and fro and the guitarist on the right was a major showboater with his low-slung guitar and trucker's hat, constantly seeking the spotlight, while the drummer just did his job and other guitarist wowed on 12 string and pedal steel.
"Enough of the rock and roll shenanigans. It gets a little out of control," Lydia announced, stating the obvious. "Let's just play some nice peaceful songs." That's how we got to hear the more low key "Midwestern Guys."
The band exited so we could experience just Lydia and her guitar and, in many ways, it was the truest and most captivating way to hear songs such as "Out on Love" and "Verlaine Shot Rimbaud." Apparently being home-schooled makes you capable of such literary lyric-writing.
When she did "More Like Them," my thoughts naturally went to the couple whose day had started with a roaring fire and vinyl. In Lydia's words, why can't I be more like them?
She wasn't a big talker between songs, but late in the set, she shared that two months in a van with four guys and too much testosterone was wearing on her, along with "electing a misogynist this week so there's a black cloud around us all..." and then some idiot yelled out a song request and she finished by saying, "...and people telling you what song to sing in the middle of a sentence."
The band returned and she sarcastically said they were going to do "the hit single from our smash record," to which the less annoying guitarist asked, "Which one?"
"The one that bought your house, your second house," she said, launching into the melancholy "Longer," in which her voice may or may not sound like vintage Shelby Lynne (a reference only Baby Boomers will get), bending almost to the point of breaking before soaring again.
The brief encore was just Lydia and her guitar and our dream evening bubble popped.
I scrambled onstage and snagged the set list as a souvenir. All three of us walked out of there enthralled with what we'd just heard, amazed at what $12 had bought us and sorry that Lydia hadn't gotten the full house she deserved.
We, on the other hand, got the best Saturday night imaginable. Amen, preacher man.
It was indeed a Saturday night I won't soon forget.
Back during the halcyon days of summer, I'd bought a $12 ticket to see Lydia at the Southern in Charlottesville and tonight a favorite couple came by to scoop me up and ferry me there.
Our first stop was Public Fish & Oyster, where we encountered a full house and no availability until 9:30 unless we were willing to sit on the patio.
I had only one question and the answer was yes, they had heaters out there, so we joined a growing group of poor planners like ourselves to eat dinner outside on the coldest evening in months.
Cozying up to a heater and with a borrowed blanket from the restaurant that shared the patio (honestly, we thought the blankets were Public's), we managed quite nicely, thank you.
Food-wise, we were in high cotton. From the blackboard offerings of East coast oysters, we had the two saltiest bivalves: PEI's Canada Cups and Rhode Island's Beaver Tails, the former the briniest and thus my fave.
When our affable server Cameron warned us that there were only two orders left of tonight's special, I immediately reserved one because how often does a person get offered wolf fish cheeks with remoulade, vinegary cucumber slices, jalapeno hush puppies and corn on the cob, all on the same plate?
Just to be sure, I also got fried brussels sprouts with a stellar apple slaw (even though brussels had a superfluous apostrophe on the menu and menu mistakes like that grate on this reader's eye), tasted a damn fine clam chowder and politely declined rockfish because I was full (room was found for chocolate torte, but that's a different story).
Over dinner, my hatted friend shared that she'd heard from long-time friends - a couple in Madison County also en route to tonight's show - who'd started today by making a fire, laying in bed and listening to Lydia's new album on vinyl.
If there could be a finer start to a day...well, I'm listening.
By the time we rolled out, the patio was completely full and the temperature had dropped ten degrees. November, you can be unpleasant.
But the Southern was as warm and toasty as the name suggests and we arrived early enough that the doors hadn't yet opened, so when they did, we bolted to claim spaces on the raised seating that surrounds the poles in the room.
It's not my first Southern rodeo by any stretch and I know those structures make fine places to stand once things get crowded.
The musician in our group immediately commented on the '70s-era drum kit onstage (the bass drum had a picture of Paul Lynde on it), the abundance of guitars (Fenders, Gibsons and a Silvertone) and had an epiphany when he spotted the Fender amps ("That's why the guitar tones sound so good on the record!").
We were amazed that the show wasn't sold out or even close to it, although it was at least diverse with everything from UVA students to plenty of Baby Boomers and skewing heavily male. Our collective opinion was that it would've sold out in Richmond.
Opener Aaron Lee Tasjan came out looking like a 21st century Hazel Moates - or at least that was our take after seeing "Wise Blood" last night - in a cream-colored "preacher's hat" over long, straight hair, a dried blood-colored jacket, a black shirt buttoned all the way up and tight pants, accompanied by Brian from Waco, a superb guitar player.
They give you loose gravel and call it rock steady
Explaining that in Omaha, someone had given him a napkin full of acid, he said he'd gone home, taken it and written four folk rock songs, including one called "Little Movies," which didn't have a particularly folk-like bent, but was a solid song anyway. Ditto "Memphis Rain"
One of these days I'm gonna lose my mind
Can't wait to see what that helps me find
His songs were smart and literate (how often do you hear a reference to poet laureate Phillip Levine?) and sometimes just plain clever, like "Twelve Bar Blues" about 12 different bars, comparing their strengths and weaknesses.
When an annoying woman right up front began trying to get his attention, he told her, "Don't start with me. It's been a long week and I smell terrible and you don't want what I got."
Always believe a man in a preacher hat.
Aaron and Brian closed out by rocking hard to "Success" before Aaron rhapsodized about how fortunate we were to be spending Saturday night with Lydia Loveless.
Duly noted.
The stage was reset for the headliners, PBRs were placed at each station and the band came out. Lydia's look said it all: a coonskin hat, a red plaid sweater, fur-lined boots and silvery blue eye shadow and her first words - "Illustrious intro here. Hello!" - said the rest.
"It's hard to feel rock and roll in a sweater, so I opted not to wear pants, just tights because I live in a van." I'm guessing that despite that, she didn't smell as terrible as Aaron claimed he did, but I have no proof of that.
Besides, odor issues aside, her leather guitar strap with her name burned into it was totally badass. And the woman has a voice that rivals Neko Case's for purity, nuance and my willingness to listen to absolutely anything she's singing.
After beginning with the provocative "European," they moved on to the bruised emotions of "To Love Somebody" as the smell of weed permeated the air, making us wonder how that even happens in a public place.
With "Real," she mined the authenticity of her past and the honesty of that hardest of goals - successful relationships - and by that point, there were enough tall people in front of us that it was time to stand on our seats. From that perch, we had a terrific view of Lydia and the four musicians with her, all of whom looked markedly older.
The bassist was a hair flipper, constantly whipping his long, curly hair to and fro and the guitarist on the right was a major showboater with his low-slung guitar and trucker's hat, constantly seeking the spotlight, while the drummer just did his job and other guitarist wowed on 12 string and pedal steel.
"Enough of the rock and roll shenanigans. It gets a little out of control," Lydia announced, stating the obvious. "Let's just play some nice peaceful songs." That's how we got to hear the more low key "Midwestern Guys."
The band exited so we could experience just Lydia and her guitar and, in many ways, it was the truest and most captivating way to hear songs such as "Out on Love" and "Verlaine Shot Rimbaud." Apparently being home-schooled makes you capable of such literary lyric-writing.
When she did "More Like Them," my thoughts naturally went to the couple whose day had started with a roaring fire and vinyl. In Lydia's words, why can't I be more like them?
She wasn't a big talker between songs, but late in the set, she shared that two months in a van with four guys and too much testosterone was wearing on her, along with "electing a misogynist this week so there's a black cloud around us all..." and then some idiot yelled out a song request and she finished by saying, "...and people telling you what song to sing in the middle of a sentence."
The band returned and she sarcastically said they were going to do "the hit single from our smash record," to which the less annoying guitarist asked, "Which one?"
"The one that bought your house, your second house," she said, launching into the melancholy "Longer," in which her voice may or may not sound like vintage Shelby Lynne (a reference only Baby Boomers will get), bending almost to the point of breaking before soaring again.
The brief encore was just Lydia and her guitar and our dream evening bubble popped.
I scrambled onstage and snagged the set list as a souvenir. All three of us walked out of there enthralled with what we'd just heard, amazed at what $12 had bought us and sorry that Lydia hadn't gotten the full house she deserved.
We, on the other hand, got the best Saturday night imaginable. Amen, preacher man.
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