By: Bob Longmore
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Langhorne Slim - Photo by Bob Longmore
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The doors of the Triple Rock opened at 10:00 on Saturday night and the staff began turning people away around 10:15. Luckily, I was able to get in and get a good look at The Evening Rig, fronted by Jason Miller (formerly of The Crush). The Evening Rig is a little more poppy and a little less angry than The Crush, but equally passionate. There was an unmistakable Westerberg/ Replacements influence. If this show was any indication, The Evening Rig have a lot in store for local music fans.
Before Langhorne Slim hit the stage, throngs of fans made their way to the front; by the time Slim finally appeared in his black pimp hat and thrift store threads, the crowd was his to take. He started nonchalantly enough, deadpanning, “All right we’re gonna’ get started here now.” It was the last moment of calm for the night.
Slim howled his gypsy-folk-blues through stretched lips and a face that contorted with each changing syllable. He channeled parts of Tom Waits, Tiny Tim and Bob Dylan through a rousing, romping and always frantic set. Slim and bass player Paul Defiglia seemed connected musically by an invisible rope. Slim frequently, dramatically would drop down to his knees in front of Defiglia as they would wind their way through a whirlwind musical interlude.
The backup vocals of Defiglia and drummer Malachi DeLorenzo during “Electric Love Letter” added a call and response aspect to the carnival-barker, opera atmosphere of the show.
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Lucero - Photo by Longmore
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Lucero’s bass player, John Stubblefield, appeared and started chanting, “I wanna’ hear one more,” as Slim and his band left the stage. The band obliged and during the last song, a random girl who saw me taking notes gave me a big thumbs up as if to reassure me that what I was seeing was indeed magical; what she didn’t know is that I had already been converted.
I caught my breath as bands changed over. I thought people were packed in tight during Langhorne Slim’s set, but as Lucero readied their equipment, things got a whole lot tighter up front. As the band revved up, there were two things I learned about Lucero: 1) Their fans are legion, and 2) the band and their fans like to drink.
Singer Ben Nichols, in full beard and a sleeveless t-shirt, looked the part of a dirty southern rocker. He sang with a gruff growl that he pushed up from the bottom of his gut. The crowd up front swayed with every chord, pumped their fists in time to the kick drum and screamed the words back at Nichols as fast as he could spit them out.
As several rounds of shots made their way to the stage, the band began to get looser and sloppier. It was the good kind of sloppy though, the kind that creates a special connection between band and audience. The kind of sloppy that says, we are here with you and we are going to give you all you can handle. I get the feeling that with Lucero’s raucous sound and grit, no two shows are ever the same. The band finally gave up the stage at 2:00 in the morning and the crowd slowly filed out dazed, yet euphoric.
Location Info:
Triple Rock Social Club
Artist Info: Langhorne Slim, Lucero, The Evening Rig
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