Saturday, January 26, 2008

Maintaining Sanity

As expected, the primaries have sucked up the vast majority of my free time lately, but this week provided a welcome reprieve (thank you, collective secretaries of state, for not scheduling any primaries). I celebrated with a trek out to Virginia last night for some good old fashioned blues madness... North Mississippi Allstars live at the State.

It was a fantastic show, provided exactly the sort of let-loose outlet I needed. Though I will say that compared with the last time I saw them (way back in the dark ages when I lived in Jersey and saw them at the Bowery Ballroom, I think), this show, in a larger venue with a, um, less dedicated audience, wasn't quite as enjoyable. It got better once I worked my way to the front of the room towards the end of the show, but, lesson learned: NMA are not a band best enjoyed while leaning on the bar. For those unfamiliar, a few clips follow.

  • I've been to shows before where it felt like every guy in the room had been dragged there by their girlfriend (exhibit A, John Mayer at Kahunaville in Delaware, where after a few G&Ts, I actually started asking guys whether they were there voluntarily and found my theory to be pretty darn good), but this show felt like the opposite: every girl in the room had been dragged out by their b.f. Probably because a good portion of the show is spent like this.
  • As that last clip demonstrated, Luther Dickinson's pretty effin' good! In fact, he was named one of the 20 new "guitar Gods" by Rolling Stone last year. The article's not online, but here's a helpful blog post including clips from the entire pantheon.
  • Their recorded stuff isn't as satisfying as their live performance, so if you're building a new NMA collection, definitely start with Hill Country Revue, recorded live at Bonaroo, or Keep on Marchin'.
  • And because it's awesome, here's Cody Dickinson on the electric washboard. Um, sideways. Happy listening!

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

You also saw the North Mississippi All-Stars with me when they opened for the Black Crows at the Hammerstein Ballroom.

8:23 PM  

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