overlap

I seem to have hit a solid run of folk/country music, given that three of the last four gigs have been just acoustic guitar and vocals, and the fourth was only the fully amplified Oyster experience. Jace Everett has a voice that combines the raw roar of early Bryan Adams, and the throaty growl of an exceptionally cross dog, his guitarist Chris does the best gurning while playing solos that I've seen in ages, and between them they produce a great soundtrack to some neat little tunes.

Which is pretty much the same thing Verlon Thompson and Guy Clark do. VT looks like Steve Martin doing an impression of Johnny Cash, and plays deft guitar lines which complement GC perfectly, as well as doing a handful of songs on his own. Guy Clark looks like a guy who's seen some serious living, and certainly knows some stories.

There's an awful lot of your average, common or garden, blue collar, normal, working people about Guy Clark's songs and that may be why they are so good. Either way, it takes a certain amount of bottle or experience to start a gig with no setlist and no fixed plan beyond playing whatever songs come up. Of course, if there's any doubt about whether or not the stage of 'past it' has been reached, there's also something about coming out of a gig to be confronted by university newcomers young enough to be your children attending the gig in the venue next door, using their heelys to get in everyone's way and buying up bootleg posters from parasites to let you know where you stand!

Labels: gigs, Guy Clark, Jace Everett