Show Review: 12/6/05: Lucero

I’m not really sure what to say about Tuesday night’s Lucero show. It was good. Really really good. It was the kind of rock show where you wake up the next morning wishing you could go again.

I thought I could approach it in a clear cut manner, a box-score-esque recount of the evening’s events like a lot of show reviews. They opened with Joining the Army > Tonight Ain’t Gonna Be Good. They closed with That Much Further West. In between, they played nearly thirty songs for two hours. They played my favorite Lucero song (My Best Girl), and they played songs I didn’t recognize. Hell, they even played a sloppy-drunk rendition of Sweet Home Alabama at the request of some of 123’s most vocal attendees (nobody’s casting stones, I’ve been that guy before).

The band was enthusiastic about playing in Morgantown, and Morgantown was thrilled to have them. In fact, over the course of the last eighteen months, Lucero has grown into quite a phenomenon around here. Tuesday’s show saw some downright fervent Lucero devotees treating a 123 bar show like a major rock and roll event. The show opened with the crowd’s enthusiasm literally spilling onto the stage in the form of a shower of Black Label. I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing, but the band seemed fine with it, despite Ben Nichols complaining that his pedals had mysteriously stopped working (hmmm… I wonder why?). I saw a lot of Lucero T-Shirts. I saw autograph seekers. After the show bassist John C. Stubblefield called the called the crowd “wild” and Ben Nichols autographed breasts (if that’s not the definition of ‘rock-star’ I don’t know what is).

During Tears Don’t Matter Much, the last tune before a three song encore, Nichols sang, “…and the kids they sing along”. And the kids complied, belting out the lyrics with gusto. Beers were raised in support, and friends were hugged. The cynical rock snob in all of us may turn up our collective noses at the crowd going nuts for a band’s biggest hit, but this just wasn’t one of those times. It was a “goose-bump” moment where the band and crowd were seeing completely eye to eye.

This town believes in Lucero. You know what, I do too.

(authors note: if anyone has good pictures of this show, send them to me or Pennington so we can put one or two up)

A little bit country...

There’s lots of good action around town (and out of it) this week for those of us who are down with the country side of things.

Tommorrow night, Memphis, TN’s Lucero will be making a return engagement to 123 Pleasant St. This should come as no surprise to many of you, as Lucero has built quite a local following over the last year delivering a number of energetic performances that have spread the word of mouth like wildfire. For those of you not in the know, Lucero plays a blistering brand of rock n’ roll that has been described as ‘country punk’, or at the very least, alt-country to the core.

Appearing Thursday night at 123 are New Riders of the Purple Sage, performing with local hillbilly dance favorites the Davisson Brothers Band. NRPS are best known for their string of early 1970s Columbia Records releases which captured country rock in it’s infancy. Original New Riders David Nelson (guitar/vox) and Buddy Cage (pedal steel) will be augmented by Michael Falzarano (of Hot Tuna), Ronnie Penque and Johnny Markowski.

Both of the above shows start at 9pm.

(Also, though technically off topic since it’s not a Morgantown Show: Del McCoury Band will be at the Carnegie Lecture Hall in Pittsburgh on Saturday. This band is the bluegrass gold standard by which all other bluegrass bands are judged.)