By: Bob Longmore
Q: What do get when you take members from punk and hardcore bands like The Crush, Big Fuckin’ Skull, April Epidemic and The Cardinal Sin and give them a case of beer, a practice space and stack of No Depression magazines?
The Evening Rig - Photo by Alexa Jones
After playing around town for over a year, The Evening Rig celebrated the release of their first album, Never Been’er (Heart of a Champion), at the Triple Rock. It is an album full of heartfelt, but not too precious garage rock. I’ll tell you that this band has a Minneapolis sound and I don’t mean that in any way but complimentary. It is an impossible expectation to compare any band to The Replacements, but from the opening chord of their first song, “Playing House,” I couldn’t help it.
The band reveled in their songs. The last time I saw the band was their first show opening for Lucero. While the songs were always catchy and played with passion, the 18 months in-between have instilled brash confidence in the band. Although some of the countrified and delicate guitar interplay heard on the record is lost live, lead singer Jason Miller still has one of the best screams of any front man in town — a scratchy, from the bottom of the gut wail that can rise above any amount of guitar fuzz.
Even though his voice is the same intense howl as when he sang with The Crush, these new songs are a bit more relaxed and easygoing. Miller even managed to smile through a couple songs about heartache and booze, like a bluesman happy to relieve his demons upon the song. After nearly each song, Miller raised in arms in triumph, like a prizefighter. I have to believe the band was happy to be there.
Happy to have a party for their CD release, the band felt it made for a better party by buying a case PBR for the crowd. Miller said, “We can’t throw you a full party, but if 24 of you want a beer…” With that, a throng of people quickly moved to the stage to get in on the free beer action.
The band was relaxed throughout the evening, bassist Jake Jarpey and lead guitarist Josh Lynch freely traded barbs in-between songs. Lynch joked about being the only one of the boys to not wear plaid. Meanwhile, drummer Rebecca Hanten quietly went about her business, or as quietly as she could be behind her thundering drum kit.
The band, eschewing their hardcore past, played some downright country waltzes. Their own song, “At The Bar,” strikes all the right outlaw country chords (actually and metaphorically). They followed that with Willie Nelson’s “I Gotta Get Drunk,” a song that fit perfectly in the Evening Rig’s beer-soaked set.
Getting the crowd in the mood for The Evening Rig were The Gleam, Die Electric! and The Prairie Sons. (Or “Prairie Sons of a Bitch,” wryly stated by Jarpey.) As I was taking in The Gleam with their foot-stomping drinking anthems, I was marveling how people in front of the stage started dancing a drunken sort of half-cocked square dance (or at least there were some pseudo-do-si-dos). In a half-dreaming daze, I came to the conclusion that if The Pogues were from Alabama, they might sound like The Gleam.
Die Electric! delivered an energetic and loose set of engaging rock songs. But just as entertaining as their music was the one-liners and random stories of Guitarist David Shuey and the inimitable Dave Gardner. The band said this was their last show for a while, at least, although the reasons they gave, which would take too long to repeat, while hilarious, were quite outlandish. (STDs, high school wrestling, make your own joke…)
So as Die Electric! may be winding down, The Evening Rig are just taking off. And if their new album is any indication, they have plenty of life left in them.
Location Info:
Triple Rock Social Club
Artist Info: Die Electric!, The Evening Rig, The Gleam
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