Saturday, April 23, 2005

Lyrical Driving "Into the stream, we pulled away I know it well, this old ballet Finding the flow, minding the sway Catching green lights all the way" - from "The Last Fare Of The Day" by Richard Shindell 2:14:26 PM      Throw Me A Bone []

Dave Alvin at The Birchmere "There's just no reason to go downtown in the music industry because that's where Britney Spears lives." – Dave Alvin in Sound Waves Magazine, July 2002   Just listen to the deep baritone voice that says I’ve been all over and I’ve seen it all, too much booze and too many cigarettes.  The passion in the vocals really does make you think Dave Alvin has lived the lives that he sings about in his songs.  The sadness in his voice as a border patrolman catching illegal immigrants who have no idea that “you can freeze to death in the California snow”, The old “Man In The Bed” refusing to believe that he’s near the end, remembering how he was when he was young.   Dave didn’t need the Guilty Men to tear it up last night, just the blazing guitar of Chris Miller to back him up.  Sometimes Miller’s guitar was a little loud, drowning out Dave’s acoustic guitar and vocals but most of the time he was on fire.  The house wasn’t full but the crowd was definitely Dave’s people, yelling out requests to which Dave replied, “I’m a stickler for a set list”, but playing those songs anyway.  Most of the songs came from his latest album “Ashgrove” with some older favorites thrown in, “King of California”, “Out in California”, and “California Snow” (there’s a theme here) being some of my favorites.  He played a beautiful version of "Somewhere In Time", co-written with Louie Perez and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos.  I wish he'd played "Blue Wing" but he can't play everybody's favorites otherwise we'd have be there all night, and who wouldn't have stayed.  The last song of the night was a song by Mississippi John Hurt called "Make Me A Pallet On The Floor".  The song is in the public domain and Dave told the audience that these folk songs belong to all of us and no matter what our differences are we can a least sing these songs together and so we did.  Overall a rocking good time.  Set List King Of California Black Sky Rio Grande Dry River California Snow Out Of Control Help You Dream Abilene East Texas Blues Somewhere In Time Ashgrove Fourth Of July Haley's Comet The Man In The Bed Mary Brown Out In California Make Me a Pallet on the Floor  - Mississippi John Hurt 12:22:52 AM      Throw Me A Bone []

© Copyright 2005 Michael Doughten. Last update: 5/1/2005; 1:51:03 PM.