Can You Feel It?

Collage: jESiO

Pics: jESiO and the internet

Lucero at Jewish Mother

Got there just in time. Opening band Augustine were onstage tuning and my friends Flies With Honey saved a booth seat by the stage for me. Sweet.

The only band I know tonight is Lucero. I heard Micah from ELT and a couple of guys who work at Alpha were in Augustine but I didn’t know what to expect. Never even heard of Glossary.

Augustine starts. It’s country…but I’m not squirming? What’s this? I thought I was allergic…Essentially, Augustine is the Claritin for all of us ailing from this affliction with the CMT crowd. So drawn to Nashville yet so loathe contrived music.

And there’s a Fender. Being played well. These guys have a great stage presence and write and perform exceptionally well—especially when it’s not their full time job. The steel lap guitarist was fun to watch. His shoulders were popping and bobbing and weaving. He was played metal in his head, I think.

I recommend anyone check them out at a larger venue. Jury is still out on bar-size venues like Hell’s Kitchen. Apparently they’re playing with Long Division soon at 37th and Zen, but I can’t find the band’s website anywhere, so no links and no pics.

Glossary played next. They’re from Mufreesboro, TN, which to anyone into live music, you will know this is the nearest town to Bonnaroo. I like them based on this. Check out their Myspace and decide for yourself. The songs and stage swagger wasn’t bad. It also was nothing original or particularly inspiring. I was somewhat reminiscent of The Black Crowes.

Lucero you are my hero…Shit, that doesn’t rhyme. Guess that’s why I’m not the songwriter and rather the fan/critic. This was such a great night for Rock. That’s right Rock, not rock. These guys aren’t the loudest I’ve heard or the rowdiest…but whatever they did to that crowd at the Jewmom last Sunday, they brought the rock show kids out in full force.

There was a bottle of red wine being passed through the crowd. There was crowdsurfing! I hadn’t seen that in a decade! Sweet! Until they almost broke the light rig…one can was dangling for a while there.

During “Can’t Feel A Thing” the entire throng of bodies was fist and/or beer and/or girlfriend in the air, everyone singing along. It’s the moments like this that make rock concerts the best ones to go to. Yeah, you can feel claustrophobic at times. Yeah, your shoes are usually gross and your hair’s stuck in weird positions by the end of it. Sometimes you have that hangover whiplash thing going on for three days. Sometimes agresso-dudes are bogarting the dance floor. But…the communion of a sing-a-long for a non top 40 song is momentous. It’s you realizing you are experiencing the exact same emotion as everyone else in the room. It’s fun.

They had wind instruments. It wasn’t a jammy-jazzy vibe, though. It was Percy Sledge interludes with the best in today’s Tennessee scene, just really good south music. Metal horns and pickup trucks and fine art…something like that anyway.

I like Lucero records but after this, I’m converted. They were so good live that even if I go back and listen to their albums (which I previously thought were hard to define and thus mildly uninspiring), I’m going to know what they look like on stage and what they do to their audience and I’m going to like them more effortlessly.