So, two shows this past weekend – one better than I expected, one worse.
Saturday, John Jennings was billed as John Jennings and Friends, but no friends ever showed – no one played the baby grand they had on stage. I like his music, but don’t think I want an evening of just him again. On the bright side, Tracy Grammer was fabulous. She played a short set, but it was good. She switched from guitar to mandolin to violin (“I asked to borrow a violin, and they sent me one worth $10000”). She was accompanied by Jim Henry, who I thought was much better than Donnie Wright (who was accompaning her when we saw her at Falcon Ridge last summer).
Friday, I had asked Todd from emmet to make sure I could videotape. When we got to the 9:30 club, they had VIP passes waiting for us so we could sit in the reserved seating section below the top bar. In 3 years of working at record stores, I had plenty of free shows at the 9:30, but never a VIP pass. It meant we could sit on bar stools the whole show – very cool. The opener was Don Dixon and friends, pretty good, but I didn’t know any of their music (Kerry’s concert rule #1 – The better you know the music, the better the show is).
The emmet swimming show was amazing. Part of it was the guests. Dave Connelly from Ebo played percussion during “Hey Jesse” (and did a fabulous 80s dance during “Sunblock”, including doing “The Worm’ across the stage), while Don Dixon sang backup during “Birdman Of Columbia” (from the album he produced), but the surprise of the night was Todd Baker from Cravin’ Dogs. He added amazing texture to the 7 songs he sat in on. The show ended at 2AM, but I wasn’t ready for it to end.