Dave Alvin and The Guilty Women – Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room – St. Louis, MO – August 22nd, 2009

Dave was back on top of his game on Saturday night as opposed to last Thursday in Columbia, MO when the Guilty Women had surpassed him.  So, altogether, the band was hitting on all cylinders.  Being the last night after seven solid weeks of touring, with an anticipated one week off, seemed to contribute to the band giving a truly kick-ass performance on the intimate stage where Chuck Berry most often plays these days in St. Louis.  A few shots of tequila for the band seemed to help too, as did a very interactive audience (Dobro and lap steel expert Cindy Cashdollar even got a marriage proposal). 

The band has been keeping to generally the same set list on this tour, comprised of songs from the new album and gems from Dave’s vast songbook, with a few covers thrown in, but there has been a bit of variance each night.  Like last Thursday, they led off with Marie Marie and then did California’s Burning with the tastefully cool a cappella opening of a snippet of the chorus of John Stewart’s California Bloodlines.  After that, was the very beautiful Here in California, written by Kate Wolf, a composition which Dave had covered on 2006’s West of the West tribute to California songwriters.  Cindy Cashdollar made the rendition even more likeable with her expert Dobro playing.

Christy McWilson took lead vocals on Weight of the World, which she had penned herself.  The song has some profound lyrics in it.  Abilene, as usual, was a 10-minute song with the dynamics of hard rockin’ parts, along with soft vocal and instrumental interludes as Dave had not yet switched from acoustic to electric guitar.

After that was Boss of the Blues, which Dave said was an actual true story about taking a ride one night in 1972 with Big Joe Turner in the front passenger’s seat, himself in the back and brother Phil Alvin behind the steering wheel.  Big Joe takes the wide-eyed young blues fans for a tour around South Central LA giving them a history lesson of the music scene.  Bassist Sara Brown stepped forward to take a tasteful solo on this song.

Sad, but pretty, opus, Potter’s Field was after that and this time they light-heartedly dedicated it to the death of Christy’s dog.  The vocals for What Am I Worth?, by George Jones, were handled in a very tasteful duet by Christy and Dave with a lot of humor and chuckling thrown in, perhaps helped by the tequila shots. 

When Dave put down his Martin and strapped on the Stratocaster to play Fourth of July, (and the rest of the show), he said, “I feel sorry for those of you right up here” referring to his amplifier about to blast the patrons in front.  And then he mentioned his philosophy that there are two kinds of folk music, quiet (acoustic) and loud (bluesy-rockin’ electric).  This electrified ballad really rocked the house and Dave and the band got a lot of audience appreciation for it. After Fourth of July was Ashgrove, during which Christy McWilson took a break backstage.  In it Dave mentioned that he, even like the 44th president of the United States, enjoys a cigarette once in a while, although I didn’t see Dave smoking at any of his three gigs that I saw this summer, so perhaps he’s wisely cut down.

For the cover of Don and Dewey’s “Justine,” former Guilty Men drummer Bobby Lloyd Hicks replaced Lisa Pankratz, while Christy McWilson shared lead vocals with Dave.  Dave introduced Bobby as his “second favorite drummer in the world after Lisa Pankratz.”  Lisa plays drums nice and hard, but Bobby slams ‘em even harder, and Dave seemed to think that Bobby started that one off a bit too loud, so he admonished him and made everyone start over.  I think Bobby played just as loud the second time.  I got the feeling that he was trying to show that he was a better drummer than Lisa.  An interesting thing happened to Christy’s voice on this song: Her usually very distinctive country twang was transformed.  I believe this lady can sing rockabilly very well too!

They did a great version of Dry River.  Early in the song, Dave did some spacey minor-key jamming with fiddle player Amy Ferris and then after another verse and chorus, Cindy Cashdollar on bad-ass-lap-steel-guitar and Lisa Pankratz on rockin’-thrashin’-pummeling-drums did their estrogen death duel for the thrill of the audience – and other band members.  They certainly put a smile on my face. 

After a three minute break, the encore started with perennial favorite Haley’s Comet, a song about how Bill Haley’s last days of life in Harlingen, Texas may have been spent.  (He was in an alcoholic haze and only 55 years old when he died.)  This Dave Alvin-Tom Russell collaboration is certainly one of my favorites and from hearing many in the audience sing along with Dave and the band, I think it was popular with many other folks as well.  After that Dave and the band did a tribute to Dave’s late best friend, Chris Gaffney, by planning the Gaffney song, Man of Somebody’s Dreams, and then they did an extremely rockin’ version of Que Será, Será, which I wish Doris Day herself could have heard!  Dave touts that the song encompasses the secret to the universe.

The cover charge was $20 and the show lasted about two hours and 20 minutes, but some of that was due to the tequila shots and Dave talking more than usual between songs.  It was worth as much as any $89 show at The Scottrade Center, however.  The only bad thing about the gig was that Blueberry Hill allowed the five or six cigarette smokers there to foul up the air for the other 194 people in attendance and The Duck Room has a terrible ventilation system.  Mr. Edwards, when will you remedy this situation?  Get with the modern times, man!

The set list:

Marie Marie
California’s Burning (with California Bloodlines intro)
Here in California
Weight of the World
Abilene
Boss of the Blues
Potter’s Field
What Am I Worth?
Fourth of July
Ashgrove
Justine
Dry River

Encore:

Haley’s Comet
Man of Somebody’s Dreams
Que Será, Será