Dave Alvin / Hacienda Bros. / Rosie Flores

FitzGerald’s American Music Festival, Berwyn, IL – July 5, 2008

Rosie Flores

By the time I paid my cover (a mere $30) and got into the mass of partying humanity, it was about 7:30 p.m. and Rosie Flores was finishing up her set with the Pine Valley Cosmonauts on the tent stage.  I was stone cold sober, but I thought she had some funny thing attached to her ear to make it look bigger.  I mean WAY bigger!  Actually it was some kind of rubber flower thingy that was exactly the same hue as her ear.  Good thing I left the LSD at home that night!  She was doing a spirited set of country swingin’ tunes and the audience was digging it.  

Then her set was over and I figured it was time to look for the gin.  Damn, those lines to the bar were long!  And I couldn’t even get into the “Club” room (the regular inside bar) because there was a line a half mile long (seemingly) to see Joe Ely and Joel Guzman play.  Well, scratch that one off of the list of acts I’d see that night.  I finally found the SideBar and a bartender with Beefeater and tonic to wet my whistle.  Then it was back to the tent stage to talk to PolkSalad, Big Sean, Tim and Angelo before the Hacienda Brothers started.

The Hacienda Brothers

I say “Hacienda Brothers,” but it was actually Dave Gonzalez touring with the Stone River Ramblers, a band from Texas.  This band was very talented, so substituting for the recently deceased Chris Gaffney and the rest of the former Hacienda Brothers functioned very well.  The lead singer, acoustic guitar and harmonica player is Mike Barfield, who has an excellent voice for country music.  He also has some big ol’ hairy lamb-chop sideburns to distinguish him from the crowd.  The pedal steel guitarist, Dave Biller, has first-rate mastery of his instrument and added a lot to the band.  Kevin Smith is the bass player and looks like a real country-western musician, or just some guy from Wyoming who would sit next to you at the bar and speak politely in a low voice.  The very talented drummer, Damien Llanes, seems to come from the Charlie Watts school of drumming – down to business with extremely accurate timekeeping.  

They played many Hacienda Brothers songs along with music from Mike Barfield’s band.  Mr. Gonzalez had sincere comments about, and dedications to, Chris Gaffney, which was very understandable.  Besides singing and playing electric guitar (a Telecaster with a cool leather pickguard), Dave Gonzalez played a Fender electric baritone guitar, which sounded great.  

Dave Alvin and The Guilty Men

Dave came out about 15 minutes late for his 10:00 p.m. scheduled start and the drummer immediately had an equipment problem, breaking either a drum or a cymbal near the start of the first song.  Dave said something about a drum breaking, but it looked to me like a cymbal was being replaced.  It’s obviously not as common to change as a guitarist’s broken string, so it took a while to fetch up a spare from hither and make the replacement.  

The first song after Dave’s theme of “So Long Baby, Goodbye” was a tribute to recently deceased best friend of Dave, Chris Gaffney: “Six Nights a Week”   This is a song that Gaff used to do as a warm-up number before Dave would come out at the end of the second song or beginning of the third song when Gaffney was still in this world with us.   “For my brother, Chris Gaffney….wherever he may be tonight.”

Then after “Abilene,” Dave and The Guilty Men played “Earl’s Rumba” preceded by Dave talking about the author, Earl Hooker, and the significance in Chicago blues music history of the street that goes in front of FitzGerald’s Night Club, Roosevelt Road.  Pianist Joe Terry always puts in a very good performance and this night was no exception.  On “Earl’s Rumba” Mr. Terry played a very tasteful solo.  Chris Miller played a nice slide guitar solo on this tune, and then Dave took it home, musically speaking, with his own, soaring guitar solo.  Earl’s Rumba was recorded last year in the studio by Dave and is available as a free download at www.davealvin.net.  

Then substitute bass man from the Blasters, Johnny Bazz, didn’t have to use his chord charts to play “Trouble Bound” because it’s an old Blasters tune.  Dave had earlier explained that John was playing with the Guilty Men because Gregory Boaz had accepted a gig for that night in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  I figured, cool - bikinis de fio dental, Cerveja Antarctica, brasileiros alegres e loucos - but Dave tried to be cute by making a disparaging remark about Greg’s lack of allegiance to the band.  

Next was what has become a Dave Alvin electric show standard the past four years, “Out of Control” which Dave informally subtitles “the new economic blues.”  As the son of a former labor union party organizer, Dave Alvin is very cognizant of the struggles of the working class.   This medium tempo song has a bluesy structure and is a great showcase for Dave playing some mighty fine hot guitar licks.

Dave then next pulled the Jubilee Train->Do-Re-Mi->Promised Land medley out of his songbook from years ago.  This is a medley that he used to perform at almost all of his shows before the Ashgrove album came out (June of 2004) and now he doesn’t include it very often, so it was good to hear again.  The strange aspect, however, was that Johnny Bazz was not playing with the band during the first two of three songs of the medley.   Dave finally went over to him and was apparently telling him the chords during Promised Land.  I found this strange for two reasons: 1) the songs are not all that complicated in chordal structure, and 2) John was provided with chord charts for the gig which were on a music stand next to him.

The Guilty Men’s performance of “Dry River” has become a great opportunity for Chris Miller to absolutely kick ass on lap steel guitar, which his did this night as usual.  If you were thinking about going to this gig, but didn’t, you can firmly kick yourself in the derrière because you missed out!  Mr. Miller coaxes some profusely bad-ass tone out of his lap steel on this song especially.

Then next, Dave began the Somewhere in Time and Ashgrove medley slowly and peacefully, which was nice because it helps to anticipate the sonic intensity of the second part, Ashgrove.   Johnny Bazz was able to play American Music just fine and it was soulfully patriotic.  “We got the Louisiana boogie and the delta blues, country swing and rockabilly, too.  We got jazz, country-western and Chicago blues.  It's the greatest music that you ever knew.  Well, it's American Music!   American Music!”   The audience dug it and then that was the end of the main set of the show.

For an encore, Dave came out by himself, spoke a bit about the loss of his best friend, Mr. Gaffney, and then performed solo a song that he and Chris recorded, “Two Lucky Bums.”  I thought he did a good job of it, considering that on the record, not only is it a vocal duet, but there’s other instrumentation besides Dave just accompanying himself on guitar.

Next, the rest of the band came out to join him for Fourth of July and the employees of FitzGerald’s started the recent tradition of throwing thousands of cocktail napkins up into the air as if they were maxi-diced confetti.  It’s kind of a cute touch, but it gets tiring.  I just want the music and I want it heartfelt.

To end the show, Dave went into a reprise of So Long Baby, Goodbye, which was cool because, since he started the show with that song, it was as if he was bringing everything full circle.   I have known of Dave also doing this reprise in at least a few other shows through the years.

This was not one of the top seven or eight Dave Alvin concerts I have seen of 30 or more, but it was very satisfying all the same.  Just as Dave has the personal standard of not including a song on a new album unless it holds up to the quality of his previously recorded music, I have very high expectations of seeing Mr. Alvin perform whether it’s a rockin’ electric show with the Guilty Men, or a mellow acoustic performance.  Dave said that he is still getting over the loss of Gaff, so I’ll cut him some slack that the optimum intensity wasn’t there.  He could have played the full two hours called for on the schedule and included Romeo’s Escape, Wanda and Duane and New Tattoo, but oh, well, maybe next time.  Remember: We continue to go to the shows of our favorite musicians whenever we can because someday they are not going to be around.  They’ll be somewhere in time, but not in the front-and-center.

The set list:

1. So Long Baby, Goodbye
2. Six Nights a Week
3. Abilene
4. Earl’s Rumba
5. Trouble Bound
6. Out of Control
7. Jubilee Train->Do-Re-Mi->Promised Land
8. Dry River
9. Somewhere in Time->Ashgrove
10. American Music
encore:
11. Two Lucky Bums
12. Fourth of July
13. So Long Baby, Goodbye (reprise)

posted this somewhere else, but since WildBill posted here, well...

July 5. 

Got there around 6 so went into the club to see who this Famous Potatoes band was.  Well, it's John Prine's original backing band and they smoked.  Johnny Burns as previously mentioned absolutely ripped on geetar.  The keyboard player had a Cub's hat on and what he said had to be the quote of the night, "Fuck the Cubs."  Of course all the north side balding yuppie scum that likes to frequent the capitalist hippie's redneck roadhouse in Berwyn boo'd.  He did clarify and stated they've broken his heart way too many times.  This dude looks like your 60+ something neighbor but he played some mean blues on the keys.  Very impressive the Potatoes were but I had to move to the tent for PVC.

Rosie Flores and Jonboy's Pine Valley Cosmonauts below.  Rosie explained she is not playing a White Falcon but a White Penguin.  She indicated she is recording a cd w/PVC.   Mostly covers of Cash, quite a few of them as a matter of fact, and even a country version of the Pistol's "Pretty Vacant."  Tom V Ray on bass. 



The Hacienda Bros were up next in the tent.  Basically it's Dave Gonzalez doing Hacienda songs backed by the Stone River Boys.  They are a great band.  Mike Barfield (did someone post a youtube vid of this feller, he looked awfully familiar), and the drummer, Damien Llane, holy shit, he's good, real good.  Googled him and found he's played with Nick Curran, damn, if I was in Texas, I'd check out Nick's numerous project.   Anyway, the HB are touring to raise money for Gaff, but honestly, he wasn't missed, even when DG sang a Gaff tune, he did it better.  And they were supposed to be a Western Soul band before.  That band has nothing on this one.  All great players in the real Hacienda Brothers, but this outfit brought the soul, funk, disco, you name it.  Barfield was a riot on "The Struggle." 

The headliner of the evening in the tent was none other than WildBill's hero, Dave Alvin.   


Not much to say other than Dave blew the roof off the tent.  Had that midget John Bazz from the Blasters playing bass since Greg Boaz took a gig in was it Brazil?   Dude should breathe once in awhile.  Wayne Hancock alum Chris "All Killer, No Filler" Miller was heavy on second ("Ashgrove") and lap steel guitar ("Dry River").  The songs continue to evolve.    Rosie Flores came out to sing "Fourth of July" since the Waco Brothers didn't know it the previous evening.  Of course the night was not complete w/o napkins.  Robbie Fulks closed the fest in the club but I had to play early mass so I was out of there.  Other than WildBill, Jen and polksis, I did not run into any other helbillys.   My buddy Mike didn't make it either.  Must've been too :drunk: to make it. hwell:

Mike Barfield


Dave Gonzalez


I swear, he needed three fingers to fret one fret on that bass.  Does he open his mouth?



The grand finale.

http://entertainment.webshots.com/video/3068904630035568665xQZoLr

All the photos. 

Caught, Ian Mclagan's set but he just doesn't move me, even w/Scrappy, he needs to play more Chuck Berryesque rockers (rock-uhs).  He is a funny chap however.