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Was surprised Rainy Day Music gets only 3 stars from AllMusic.com. I'd travel ~100mi to see those guys do that album alone.
Recently we saw a pretty great show at the strangest of venues. It was Justin Townes Earle (solo acoustic) with supporting act Lydia Loveless (also solo acoustic) at a members only club in Roswell, New Mexico. Doors were at 4:30PM, dinner at 6 (green chile cheeseburger, pasta salad and a slice of watermelon!), and show promptly at 8pm. The flier misspelled Earle's last name.
Roswell (48,000 pop) feels way more like a biggish town than a smallish city. It's known for farming and ranching and the esteemed New Mexico Military Institute. It's a conservative county that overwhelming voted for Trump (63 to 27%), even though Hillary carried the state by 8 points.
My girlfriend and I were not members of the club. I presume about 2/3rds of the 60 or so people in attendance were (I counted every person I saw, but missed a couple who were in the pisser). A lot of the men looked like Mike Pence (but with wranglers and shit kickers) and most looked like Mike Pence probably would have when Lydia Loveless, preacher's daughter, started dropping casual f-bombs and singing tunes with lyrics like "No one goes to heaven".
[youtube:44o7qp69]b4CZh7Ev7mU[/youtube:44o7qp69]
Lydia is a complete bad-ass and played her set and didn't change, or play down, or cater to the audience, even if some of them prob wished they were at home watching "the Conners" instead of her. Maybe she got that vibe, too, and that's exactly why she didn't bend. Check her out sometime if you get the chance.
Then comes Justin Townes Earle, who offers a little advice to the audience that they might need to "lighten the fuck up" and he reminds them that he is an Earle, which means that he is without a doubt "ornery". He's funny and affable and completely in charge, giving shit to people who try to clap along with his songs (something along the lines of "you think I can't keep time myself?"). He pokes fun at Baptists and Methodists, speaks of his love for baseball, talks about how there is no such thing as barbecue in New Mexico, and then he speaks with raw truth about the realities of addiction and addicted people, a topic that hurts a lot of people and has no easy solutions. The room is quiet while speaks on this, forcefully, a little angrily even, an addict himself he reminds everyone, so he is an expert on the topic.
We requested a song (he said no!), and finished up with the Replacements "Can't Hardly Wait" after the briefest of encore breaks. Weird, awesome, emotional night.
Also saw Ryan Adams at Red Rocks for the third year in a row. I'm kinda watching him turn into some bluesy, jam-band version of himself and I don't love it, love it. Then saw the electric Esme Patterson the next night at a movie theatre bar. She signed my record. I blushed.
Buzzbands foreva.
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