Son Volt – The Luminaire

I’ve seen Jay Farrar play solo a couple of times – so I was fairly excited to be seeing him tonight with a full band. As many alt-country fans are aware the current incarnation of Son Volt is merely Jay Farrar and newer members of the band (most of whom played on the latest Son Volt album ‘The Search’) so there is a small element of controversy in billing the group"Son Volt" when Jay is the only original member (and the only one who played on their seminal first 3 albums).

As much as I love The Luminaire as a venue – it doesn’t hold up as well to a sold out crowd – particularly the very low stage, so it was standing room only for the 250 odd who squeezed in for the second of two Son Volt shows.

Opening the show solo with just acoustic guitar and harmonic, Jay Farrar delivered a great stripped down take of “Methamphetamine” from the new record, before being joined by his four-piece band to run through much of the album.

Highlights for me were “Underground Dream” and “Bandages and Scars”, plus a Delta-blues rave-up run-through “Damn Shame” from 2001’s ‘Sebastopol’.

After half a dozen songs – Jay announced that their regular drummer had broken his collar bone coming back from a Magnolia Electric Company show, and the band were using a stand-in drummer. It seemed like the replacement drummer had only learned half the set, as he then proceeded to leave the stage every few songs (generally returning a few songs later).

While giving a more interesting sound – the drummer-less combo of guitar, bass and keywords did seem to miss a drummer driving the songs along. It certainly made for a strange interlude, and the band themselves seemed sometimes a little confused about how things would go.

The stand-in drummer did return to help finish out the main set, which included “Afterglow 61” and the crowd-pleasing “Tear Stained Eye”. “Voodoo Candle” was reworked to great effect as searing rocker.

After a long 90 minute set, the band returned for a short encore, kicked off with “Windfall” another favorite that had most of the crowd singing along. Before the show closed with a barely recognizable reggae rock recasting of Uncle Tupelo’s “Life Worth Living”.

Dandy Warhols – Electric Ballroom, Camden

I’d previously been to the Electric Ballroom in Camden when it was a clothes and music market – so I wasn’t expecting much as a venue, but it actually works quite well.
There’s 3 different bars so it’s reasonably easy to get a drink. You enter on the side of the main floor – so there isn’t a constant crowd moving in and out while you’re trying to watch. And aside from the open floor section, you can head upstairs to watch from a smaller bar at the far end of the room – which is where Kimbo and I managed to snag a good spot.
The Dandy’s haven’t been super-busy since I saw them last August at the Bar Academy and it was a fairly similar show, although the band did play a few news songs from a forthcoming album that front-man Courtney promised would be coming out in 2008.
“All The Money Or The Simple Life Honey” sounded great – starting off fairly sparsely before the whole band kicked in. Other highlights: “We Used To Be Friends”, “You Were The Last High”, and “Not If You Were The Last Junkie on Earth”.
“Bohemian Like You” caused a full-on minor riot in the mosh-pit and, as keyboardist Zia pointed our “the first crowd surfer I’ve seen in, like, seven years”.
The band was still playing in almost complete darkness, using a screen behind the stage to project different footage for each song. Again closing with “Country Leaver” the band sounded great – and while it was a good show, it’s pretty frightening how similar it was to their last London show a year ago.