Saturday night's Blasters show at City Winery was a rocking good time. I hadn't seen the band in years, and while Dave Alvin no longer plays with his brother Phil, it hardly seemed to matter. The 2 hour set delivered all you could want...and maybe just a little less.
I do love the Winery, but I will admit it was an odd setting for this band. Kick-ass, American rock and roll played to an audience sipping Malbec while noshing on their plates of charcuterie removed a bit of the sweat and soul from the performance. The music needed to be louder and the crowd needed to be doing something more physical than passing the cornichons.
Still, the set list was near-perfect, from the opener "Dark Night" through covers of George Jones and James Brown, to Blasters faves like "I'm Shakin," "Border Radio" and "Marie Marie," Phil Alvin and the boys worked hard and seemed thrilled that most of us braved the weekend's biblical weather to check them out, even if they closed the set with the strange "American Quadrilogy," a pisstake on Elvis' already hilarious "American Trilogy" with "Do The Clam" from The King's 1956 doozy "Girl Happy" tacked on the end.
Here's a mini American trilogy, recorded live at Atlanta's "Drive Invasion" from 2007.
(Phil Alvin singing James Brown's "Please Please Please" is currently my favorite thing.)
LONG WHITE CADILLAC
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
I'M SHAKIN'
2 comments:
Great post. Glad to see The Blasters are still at it. I was fortunate to see the Original Blasters reuuion tour at Fitzgeralds (in lovely Berwyn, IL)a few years back and it was amazing.
Thanks Troy. The band really sounded great. Phil's voice hasn't changed.
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