AltCountry: The Old 97's, Live, Minneapolis, October 22, 2004

I love when a concert set starts wit the first track of the latest CD. It means that the band celebrates that track, confirming its position as the album opener. For the listener, those first notes have come to define the new chapter in the band’s sound. On Friday, October 22, at First Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Old 97’s did just this when Ken Bethea and Murry Hammond play those first fat notes of “Won’t Be Home” and Philip Peebles laid down the train track rhythm. And with that, in the club that saw Prince make history with Purple Rain, the train was rolling.

The second song, “Stoned,” is traditionally near the beginning of the show, a song that revs up lead singer Rhett Miller’s love affair with the crowd. As the bluesy romp goes on, Miller slides his hips side to side. Throughout the evening, he’d often us a Pete Townshend windmill on the guitar except with more flair, like a strip tease on the guitar. Poking a little fun at his flirty band mate, Hammond commented later in the show on how warm it was on the stage saying he’d “have to be one of those unbuttoned shirt guys.”

As I had urged in my review of Drag It Up, the night’s set was full of thrown down rockers, including “The New Kid” and “Borrowed Bride.” “The New Kid” begins with Miller’s vocal, tempered well with Hammond’s bass, really bringing out an ominous sound.

The well-balanced set interspersed songs that featured Hammond on lead vocals including “Crash on the Barrelhead,” “W TX Teardrops,” and “In the Satellite Rides a Star” (“trying a quiet one”). Hammond led the way on “Smokers,” a two-step surf rock with a screaming guitar from Bethea and a sped up tag ending. As said in the album review, some have passed over this song as forgettable, but live, they prove that this is a song to be reckoned with. There was also the brand new cover of Don Walser’s “Rolling Stone from Texas.” A soundcheck song the guys decided to add to the set list for the first time that night. Walser is known as the “yodeling cowboy,” the “Pavarotti of the Plains,” and Hammond lived up to the yodeling challenge, belting it out in wonderful tribute.

The other cover of the evening was “She’s Got Everything” by the Kinks, a song recorded by the 97’s for a Valentine’s Day compilation to be released in 2005.

Other interesting parts of the set included:
**“Wish The Worst” sounds like the inspiration for the band Five Eight’s “The Liquor Song.” (see below)
**“Coahulia” is one of those wonderful quirky songs of the 97’s, featuring Ken Bethea on lead vocals, which was incredibly fun.
**The first encore which featured Rhett Miller on solo acoustic with two songs from his own album, The Instigator. “Come Around” sounds a little like the Verve Pipe’s “Freshman” or something from Oasis. “Our Love” finds Miller pounding that acoustic like Hamell on Trial or the Violent Femmes.

Some the best rockers came from 1997’s Too Far to Care. With the show beginning on “Won’t Be Home”’s train track rhythm, “Melt Show” then blew that steam engine up. The first encore ended with “Big Brown Eyes,” which starts so casually, with a twangy little hitch in the step, but then slams it home, with a triplet patter led by Peebels to create anticipation and tension. The main set finished with Too Far to Care’s closer, “Four Leaf Clover,” a song that features X’s Exene Cervenkova on the album version. A tremendous homage to X, the night’s live version made me realize how Peeble’s drum intro is much like that of the rolling floor tom pattern on the Smiths’ “How Soon is Now?” It quickly breaks into X-styled AltCountry punk, but that floor tom pattern is definitely there.

The second encore came just before they kicked the band off the stage to get ready for the DJ-led disco in the club. With Miller saying, “I bet none of them would want to dance to a song like this,” the Old 97’s closed the evening with “Barrier Reef” and “Timebomb.” The disco attendees may have missed the beat, not seeing how they could possibly shake their groove thang to these two songs, but I left exhausted by the broken-beer-bottles-on-the-floor, drenched-in-sweat, raising-our-fists-to-the-sky, howling-like-wolves, packed-out-club intensity.

Thanks to New West Records, the Old 97's, and Murry Hammond for their help.

The Old 97’s Set List for October 22, 2004
1. Won’t Be Home (Drag It Up)
2. Stoned (Hitchhike to Rhome)
3. Designs on You (Satellite Rides)
4. Smokers (Drag It Up)
5. Rollerskate Skinny (Satellite Rides)
6. Borrowed Bride (Drag It Up)
7. Murder (or a Heart Attack) (Fight Songs)
8. Crash on the Barrelhead (Fight Songs)
9. Melt Show (Too Far to Care)
10. Old Familiar Steam (Wreck Your Life)
11. The Other Shoe (Wreck Your Life)
12. W. TX Teardrops (Too Far to Care)
13. Coahulia (Drag It Up)
14. Indefinitely (Fight Songs)
15. She’s Got Everything (The Kinks)
16. Rolling Stone From Texas (Don Walser)
17. New Kid (Drag It Up)
18. Four Leaf Clover (Too Far to Care)
Encore 1 – Rhett Miller solo acoustic
19. Come Around (from Miller’s The Instigator)
20. Our Love (The Instigator)
Encore 1 continues with band
21. In the Satellite Rides a Star (Drag It Up)
22. Adelaide (Drag It Up)
23. Wish the Worst (Hitchhike to Rhome)
24. Big Brown Eyes (Too Far to Care)
Encore 2
25. Barrier Reef (Too Far to Care)
26. Timebomb (Too Far to Care)

Past Old 97’s Postings at Music Spectrum
Old 97’s Drag It Up posted 10/2/04
Old 97's Interview with Murry Hammond posted 7/19/04
Old 97's Fight Songs posted 3/22/04