"Set list over deer sausage in basement of Cactus"
Audio: by Aaron Wevodau
Video: When Wine Was Cheap / Trampled by the Sun (side view) / Ringing Dark & True / In the Pines / Collections / Everybody's Missing the Sun / Pine Island Bayou > The Eyes of Texas > Pine Island Bayou / Boil My Strings / Bean Bowl > My Time Your Time > Son Of Bum / Bean Bowl > My Time Your Time > Son of Bum (alt. view) > I Like Drinking / I Fought the Law > All in the Pack / Ain't No Sunshine / Maria / All the Labor
The Gourds
Cactus Cafe
2247 Guadalupe Street
Austin, TX
2-19-10
01. Cold Bed
02. Fine Leather Truck
03. When Wine Was Cheap
04. Trampled by the Sun
05. Blankets
06. Ringing Dark & True
07. In the Pines (trad.)
08. I'm Troubled (trad.)
09. Plaid Coat
10. Collections
11. O Rings
12. Everybody's Missing the Sun (Nils Lofgren)
13. Pine Island Bayou > The Eyes of Texas (John Sinclair) > Pine Island Bayou
14. Boil My Strings
15. Bean Bowl >
16. My Time Your Time >
17. Son Of Bum
18. Burn The Honeysuckle
19. Country Love
20. I Like Drinking
21. All in the Pack > I Fought the Law (Sonny Curtis) > All in the Pack
E:
22. Ain't No Sunshine (Bill Withers) *
23. Dying of the Pines
24. Maria
25. Tex-Mex Mile
26. All The Labor **
*Kevin and Keith only
**Jimmy on bass instead of guitar & Kevin on guitar instead of mandolin
Soundcheck: Cactus-Closing Rag (improv.), Outlaw Blues (Bob Dylan), Sing Me Back Home (Merle Haggard), Blanket Show.
© Jennifer Cassaday
Special thanks to Aaron Wevodau, Tomski, Jennifer Cassaday, hookyjump, and Alan Catcher for the field reports. If anyone has audio/video/photos from this show, please email TheGourdsNews.
If this was the Gourds' last show at the Cactus Cafe, they couldn't have gone out in a more fitting way.
ReplyDeleteThe only other time I had seen them there, after Heavy Ornamentals came out, I was a bit surprised that they played their full rock and roll show in that tiny room. A great show for sure, but I remember wishing they had played more acoustic stuff.
Flash forward four years, and the Gourds find themselves back in Austin after a tour of the Northwest, and their instruments are still in transit somewhere between here and Wyoming. So it was whatever backup instruments they could find in their closets, I guess. They all shared Jimmy's LGO acoustic, and I think I saw only two electric guitars on stage, but Kev only used one (I think) and that was 14 songs into the show.
What we got was an intimate, largely acoustic performance of mostly songs from the '90s that helped this relative newbie picture what it must have been like to have seen the Gourds in their infancy.
Highlights for me were Ringing Dark and True, In The Pines (great singing), the Bean Bowl trilogy, Boil My Strings (when Kev finally strapped on the electric), Honeysuckle and Ain't No Sunshine. Jimmy seemed especially animated when he was singing, waving his arms, gesturing and accenting the beats with his hands like a cross between Joe Cocker and Ian Anderson.
Between songs, the guys regaled us with tales of the best shows they had seen at the Cactus and lamented its apparent demise in August. They mentioned how they had seen some of their all-time favorite shows in that perfect-sounding room, and, as of last night, I can easily imagine myself 10 years from now thinking I had seen one of my all-time favorite shows their as well.
-- Tomski
Re: All the Labor
ReplyDeleteThis song to me encapsulates this band both musically and lyrically. Like this band's history, the song builds slowly, patiently, to a hell-raising and religious conclusion for all involved. These guys have built something truly brick by brick and stitch by stitch over the years. As Mr. Ribs said to the living room full of the converted, "there's a lot of hardcore Gourds fans here tonight!" And Mr. Slosinger also noted that he had just turned 16 with the Gourds. After logging thousands of miles, playing hundreds of shows, and having near death experiences, they are one of our generation's greatest bands. They have invited fans to be friends, and as such have put themselves out there warts and all. This may sound all cornball and shit, but being in this room with a band cranking out this song for the hometown crowd was a truly spiritual experience. OK and the tequila helped a little bit. Can't imagine what will be going when these boyz turn 21.
Alan Catcher
Austin, TX
Thanks for posting vids. Lucky austinians!
ReplyDeleteThis was a great show for me personally as well. Reminiscing about the Cactus became also a way of talking about the history of us, this group of men grown together, then apart and again and again we wind up together on a stage singing and playing. It should be no surprise that this is no picnic; no rock star party; no daisy parade we inhabit here. Yes, it is our blissful realization of long held boyish dreams acted out in front of mirrors with broomsticks in hand. When one sets out to follow and find such a thing as a dream, nothing is ever quite what it seemed when surrounded by the pure imagination of it. Life has a way of wrinkling things and twisting back on itself to reveal the bitter truth of the childish longing with the sugar coating of mortality. That is to say we are in a great tragicomedy the likes of which M.A.S.H. could never approach. This Gourds life is a personal adventure mixed with a spiritual questioning and a small business mindset. It would make a weird management book to be sure. It might not make for a very interesting Bill Moyers interview, but it does make for a pretty good rock show now and again. Glad I was there for that one and the next one.
ReplyDelete