It's a Gas, Gas, Gas

It wasn't my first Whiskey Rebellion rodeo.

But clearly that wasn't apparent on my face or the woman who sold me my ticket at Firehouse Theater wouldn't have asked if it was my first time there. When I laughed and said no, she smiled knowingly, saying, "You know what to do then."

Sure did. Go find the best possible seat and settle in to hear a top-notch bluegrass band pay tribute to the Rolling Stones. And unlike when I'd gone to the Dylan tribute, this time there was a container of earplugs on the counter for those fearing volume.

Are you kidding? My ears have been abused for so many years that there was no way a bluegrass band was going to offend them. Besides, I keep ear plugs in my bag for emergency punk shows, which this was not. Interestingly, the overhead music before the show was the Beatles, a foreshadowing, perhaps, of what's to come with Whiskey Rebellion's next tribute show.

Waiting for the show to begin, I cased the joint and did a mental Venn diagram of the sold-out crowd. Overlapping at the center were bluegrass fans, Baby Boomer couples, musicians and Stones fans. One of the few millennial couples was seated behind me and I overheard him tell her, "This is my Dad's kind of venue." But before she could draw the wrong conclusion (that his parents weren't hip), he added, "But they live in Church Hill and they're both psychologists."

Son, as long as they're still going to shows and have a venue type, I'd lay off the commentary and salute them instead. We'll just see if you keep going to shows once you've passed the half-century mark.

Let's just say it was the kind of crowd that, when artistic director Joel Bassin was mentioning Firehouse goings-on, murmured and reacted to such buzzwords as Chekov, Oedipus and gospel choir.

A literate, musical crowd.

"Feel free to dance, or go to the bar or stretch your legs during the show," he instructed the crowd, before introducing the "greatest band in the world."

Whiskey Rebellion was a five piece this time because their banjo player - the only one in the group who'd actually seen the Stones and that was in '94 - hadn't been able to make it, although a camera had been set up for him to watch the show (and for us to wave hello to him). That left acoustic guitar, bass, drums, fiddle and keys to carry on, with the banjo player instructed to practice along at home as they played.

From the first acoustic guitar strums, the crowd recognized the song, with one guy calling out, "Paint it Black, you devils!"

The only problem was that the singer's vocal mic wasn't turned on, so when the song ended, he asked, "Am I on?" and the audience roared back, "Nooooo!" followed by shouts of, "Play it again!" which they did, but only part of it. A couple of songs later, it was a ghost in the machine - aka feedback - that bedeviled one song before everything smoothed out for good.

Not going to lie, as a casual Stones fan, there were several songs I didn't recognize as well as plenty I did, like "Dead Flowers," "Under My Thumb" and "Wild Horses." Shaking his head between songs, the singer acknowledged, "These guys wrote some good songs."

Many of the songs required the fiddle player to play Keith Richard's lead guitar part, which worked to great effect, never more so than on "Gimmee Shelter," where his lead was nothing short of masterful.

Between songs, an audience member shouted out, "Hey, how about 'Waiting on a Friend?" and got no response from the band. "Hey, your friends are here," she tried again. "Waiting on a friend?"

No response from the band, although the singer did go on to observe, "Of all the bands we've paid tribute to - Grateful Dead, Tom Petty, Dylan - the Stones have more southern drawl than any of them. So a British man doing southern drawl, like 'drag me awa-aay.' It's hard to do!"

The sped-up fiddle solo on "Midnight Rambler" involved a whole lot of build-up and was matched by the speed of the guitarist strumming so fast his hand was a blur. Afterwards, the singer said, "Doing Mick is hard on the voice. That's alright, he loved PBR!" and took a swig from his own can.

What I'd discovered at the Dylan tribute was how much I'd liked hearing older music played through a bluegrass filter. That I wasn't particularly a Stones fan mattered not at all because, let's face it, at this point they're part of the 20th century songbook.

During intermission, I inserted myself into a conversation after hearing one guy telling another about a new building project in Manchester that involved a common room as part of the master plan. The catch was, all residents had to commit to having three meals a week with the other residents in that room. And while most of the pre-sold units had gone to millennials (including some with young children), an 80-year old couple had also bought one.

Sounds like a most interesting couple, we all agreed.

Guy #2 then shares that there's a planned community in Hanover County on ten acres with small houses scattered about, all within a 2-mile walking distance. "I could see doing that with a few other couples, but it was too close to Route 1." I got the impression he saw it as a middle-age built-in party.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Also overheard at intermission, 'Well, I did grow up in Mechanicsville." Whatever that proved and I was curious, I didn't get to find out.

When the second set began, the singer joked, "So we look pretty cool on this stage, don't we? It's super-different!" He was referring to the set for Firehouse's current production of "Gospel Oedipus," complete with bench, pulpit, fencing and a throne, which had been turned backwards for the performance. And it did frame them nicely.

Whiskey Rebellion's second set was all original material well executed and over in a flash, but the crowd wasn't having it.

"One more, one more!" many in the crowd called out and the band came back for one last Stones song, getting everybody thoroughly riled up by doing "Satisfaction." The cheering at the fiddle solo was almost louder than the song, but then again, so was the crowd's clapping along that accompanied the last half of it.

That's when you know this probably isn't anyone's first rodeo. Okay, except maybe the guy with the hip parents.

Blowin' in the Wind

Where was I when Dylan went electric? In elementary school.

By the time I was buying records and forging my own musical path, Dylan was passe, or at least in the junior high circles I moved in, he was. And while I could have circled back around at some point to acquaint myself with his  extensive catalog, I never did.

Which is not to say I didn't come around to appreciating his songs, even (especially?) when sung by others, But I was definitely out of the Dylan loop. Years ago, I recall an older friend and massive Dylan fan telling me about a recent Dylan concert, notable because he'd played "Masters of War," which apparently was highly unusual up to that point.

Only problem was I had to go home and look up "Masters of War."

Eventually, I tried to correct my musical inadequacy by reading books such as his chronologically-challenged "Chronicles, Volume I," as well as David Hajdu's "Positively Fourth Street." I made sure to see "I'm Not There" and the iconic documentary "Don't Look Back" in an effort to glean more of Dylan's back pages.

See what I did there? If not, you may be as Dylan-deprived as me.

Still looking to learn, I jumped at the chance to go to Firehouse Theater to see local Americana/bluegrass band Whiskey Rebellion celebrating the music of Dylan.

The producing artistic director expressed surprise to see me there  for something other than a play and a discussion of restaurants ensued.  Next to me was a woman who'd seen the band before when they were doing an evening of Grateful Dead music. Waiting for the show to start, the guy behind me sang along loudly to Stone Temple Pilots, assuring those around him, "I'll stop singing when the band starts."

Instead he stopped when the director came out and said, "Hi. Happy December and happy Hanukkah!" No candle was lit, however.

The show officially began when the singer/guitarist and upright bass player took the stage and launched into "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," a song I knew from the Peter, Paul and Mary version.

Please don't judge.

As we applauded that, the remainder of the band came out: violinist, keyboard player, drummer and banjo player and began a song I didn't recognize. But I was okay with that because I went into this knowing that I likely wouldn't be able to identify every song.

Luckily, I immediately recognized "Forever Young," delivered after the singer explained how exciting it had been to select from so many Dylan songs and spend the Fall learning them. And even a Dylan neophyte like me knew "Like a Rolling Stone" from the first measure.

I mean, I'm not a complete idiot.

"Dylan was such an inspirational songwriter," the singer said, pointing out that with guitarists, later generations built on what guitarists accomplished in the '60s and '70s. "But it never got better than Dylan's songwriting. He was untouchable as a songwriter."

Even I knew this. After all, isn't that how he wound up with the Pulitzer prize?

He went on to posit on Dylan's inscrutability and how his songs could be taken literally or how a person could think he was somehow writing about their own life. He seemed to think the latter was the case with "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."

After a swig of his Miller beer for his scratchy throat, the singer joked that he need it because, "Dylan had that clear crisp timbre, right?" and the audience (95% of whom could have told you where they were the day JFK was assassinated) laughed.

"Then you need a shot of bourbon for that!" a guy near me suggested.

His revived voice was for "Meet Me in the Morning," a song I didn't know, followed by the spot-on "Political World."

We live in a political world
Courage is a thing of the past
Houses are haunted
Children unwanted
The next day could be your last

After their powerful rendition of the song, the singer looked at the audience and said seriously, "True story," causing a guy down in front to holler out, "Good stuff!"

It was, too. All six musicians were strong players clearly enjoying the chance to get their Dylan on, although if I was in elementary school, they weren't even a gleam in their Daddy's eye when Dylan went electric.

"Knockin' on Heaven's Door" got the full-on treatment with a heartbreaking violin part and a reminder to the crowd that it had been written for the film "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid." And while I may have known that at some point, it had long since slipped from my mental Rolodex.

No one should be surprised that I knew "It Ain't Me, Babe" from the Turtles' version, but who knew what a banjo and brushes on the drums could add to it?

Saying that the band needed to get "refilled and tuned up" meant that intermission was imminent and the singer used the opportunity to test our Dylan knowledge. "Everybody must take a break," he announced with an expectant look on his face.

Doesn't quite have the ring of the original lyric, now does it?

They closed the first set with "All Along the Watchtower," which turned out to be the ideal song for shredding on banjo, guitar, violin and keys while the rhythm section held it all down.

I can't even tell you how much more fully Dylan-qualified I felt during intermission.

Around me, I listened as two blond women discussed the benefits of Alexa and two middle-aged men discovered that they'd been at the same high school football game in 1974. I kid you not, they even recalled a short player who could run like hell, though neither remembered the guy's name.

"Ten minutes, that's all it takes in this town to find your connection," one said to the other. If not for the lights going down, I would have turned to him and challenged that theory. Sir, you could talk to me all night and I can guarantee you won't find a connection.

Whiskey Rebellion's second set was all original music and their stellar playing meant that even unfamiliar songs were a pleasure to hear, though as the singer reminded us, these were not Dylan songs because Dylan is at the top of the songwriting pyramid.

An evening of untouchable songs meant that I got a refresher course tonight and even a little inspiration to go deeper, maybe at my next record-listening party. It's never too late to up your Dylan quotient.

I may be late getting on the Dylan train, but only because I didn't know better.

Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.