Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell 12/7/2015

I was pleased to catch up with this particular version of an Emmylou tour after missing a similar tour last time round. I did however catch the 'Wrecking Ball' tour last year which was superb. This time they were touring the new album which I had not listened to much but as ever with Emmylou the back catalogue gets a good airing as well. The gig started with a couple of classic songs in the first few selections, 'Return of the Grievous Angel' (with Rodney doing the Gram Parsons' part) and then shortly after 'Poncho and Lefty'. A couple of songs later another great song 'Invitation to the Blues' (a Rodney Crowell composition)and then They moved on to do a selection from the new album 'The Traveling Kind' with some tracks from in from their previous collaboration 'Old Yellow Moon'. The interesting thing was that while I was expecting to enjoy Emmylou's singing and Rodney Crowells performance, which I did, I hadn't factored in how good the two band guitarists were. Jedd Hughes on lead was fast, sweet and country in an Albert Lee'esque sort of way whilst Steven Fishell on pedal steel added a great country vibe too. And they played so well together feeding off each other and melding together very well. With the two acoustic guitars of Emmylou and Rodney plus bass, drums and keyboards the overall band sound was superb although the sound quality wasn't good on the first couple of songs until they fiddled with the mix. 'Tulsa Queen' (from 'Luxury Liner') was a highlight but perhaps the best song of the evening came shortly after which was the Rodney Crowell song 'Ain't Living Long Like This'. This had the band and in particular the guitarists belting out the rocking bluesy song and looking like they were enjoying it bigtime as well. The encore finished with the signature 'From Boulder to Birmingham' and then sadly it was all over.

Larkin Poe 11/7/2015

I saw Larkin Poe in June as they were support for Elvis Costello and liked them so much I came back for their own show which was part of the Bristol Americana 'festival'. Support for them was 'Police Dog Hogan' a west country band that are actually quite difficult to categorise but certainly had strong strands of folk and bluegrass in the mix. An eight piece band with banjo, mandolin, accordion and trumpet in the line-up they stomped through an enjoyable set for more than an hour. Larkin Poe were a four piece for this show adding a bassist to the drummer that accompanied Rebecca and Megan Lovell on guitars last time round. They included a number of the songs from their album that they played last time out but extended the set to take in some covers and other songs from their catalogue. Of the covers I particularly enjoyed Dylan's 'New Pony' and the encore was Tom Petty's 'American Girl' sung by just the sisters with one acoustic guitar as backing. Most of the set was down and dirty guitar from the girls with Rebecca blasting out the vocals and it was hugely enjoyable. One of the highlights though was a poignant acoustic version of 'Overachiever' one of best songs from the album and delivered with passion by Rebecca. Another was a song dripping with Deep South feeling about sin and prayer. The last track of the main set was back to the guitar vibe featuring in particular the slide of Megan and again one of the stand out tracks on the album ' Jailbreak'. All that was left was a cover of 'Bang Bang' then 'American Girl' and then they were gone. I miss them already.

Grateful Dead - 6/7/2015

I wasn't sure whether this counts as a gig - it was streamed to our local cinema and it wasn't actually live as there was a delay of half a day or so to cope with time differences. But because it was actually the Grateful Dead (or at least those still living) and it was the final gig of such an iconic band I decided it was right to log it. It was in fact the third of three final gigs but as usual with the Dead it was one set that lasted ten plus hours rather than a repetition of one set over three nights. Nobody else does that or probably even has enough of their own material to do that. Nobody else has pioneered in the way The Dead have in encouraging taping of their gigs and releasing live gigs form their mixing desk tapes. What a long and brilliant trip it's been. The gig was excellent. My highlights were the section that started with a superb version of 'Cassidy' moved on to one song that I particularly like 'Althea' and then followed that with 'Terrapin Station'. Of course it was strange to see a Dead gig without Garcia but I sort of liked the Garcia stand-in, Trey Anastasio. He didn't try to do a tribute act but he did capture the feel of Garcia and he fitted in what was as usual a great ensemble gig.