So the start of a busy week with four gigs in five days taking in country rock tonight, soul with Jaden Ngonda, blues with Robert Finley and ending the week with Norah Jones and a bit of jazz.
Tonight though its Old 97’s celebrating thirty years in the business. They are not often over this side of the pond to which they blamed greedy managers who only wanted to take the easy dollar back in the US so it was great to finally see them live for the first time.
Led by the youthful looking Rhett Miller, hip swinger extraordinaire, who is a ringer for a better looking Dave Grohl if he had just come out of a beauty parlour. It’s still the four original members with Murray Hammond on bass, Ken Bethea on guitar and Phil Peeples on the sticks.
It’s a breathless set tonight as they rattle through as many songs as they can shoe horn into 90 minutes taking in tracks across their back catalogue but with a definite leaning on ‘Too Far to Care’. As you can imagine with a band together this long, they are tight and in complete simpatico and this is country based rock at its very finest.
Twenty two songs in and you feel everyone could have gone on for another twenty two but its all wrapped up with ‘Timebomb’ and its probably, but hopefully not, goodbye for another ten years.
Many highlights but I loved ‘Rollerskate Skinny’, Doreen’ and of course ‘Let’s get drunk and get it on’. A great night with these rockers.
Keep on rockin y’all