show review!
this was to be my first show experience at lazona rosa. i must say it was enjoyable. i've been a fan or mr mat kearney since i saw him on vh1's artist's on the rise. his diversity and originality blew me away, and still does. i bout these tickets for jer's birthday. knowing he enjoyed kearney, but hoping he would enjoy it as much as i figured i would. yes i understand how selfish that SOUNDS, but that wasnt my initial intent. anyways, back to the show review. we get there when doors open, and while the twenty-some-odd people rush to claim their spot right smack in front of the stage, jer kar and i gradually made our way to our spot, right in front of the mixing console. why is this you ask? well if the dude is mixing the show from there, where do y0u think it's gonna sound best at? (if he's a good engineer)...i rest my case. so we were there an hour prior to showtime, and basically just stood there and talked. allow me to paint a visual for those of you that have never been here. its basically a warehouse with a bar. much like austin music hall, but lazona is more of a club-like stage and place. stage in the corner. bathroom stalls with no doors etc. so. show gets kicked off at 9 on the dot. opening band titled wild sweet orange. i had already check them out on itunes, but hadn't listened much. wasnt really blown away, but they were fairly good. kearney actually said later they were weeks away from signing a major record deal. so they play for about 35 mins, and then a 20 minute set change ensues, and kearney opens up with "crashing down" i believe. from there i have no clue of a set list, and i'm pretty sure there wasnt one. several times he asked what do you guys wanna hear? he played his first hit "nothing left to lose" in the middle of the set which i found interesting. his next to last song he took a request and someone wanted to hear "what's a boy to do?" kearney's response was "i dont even know how that one starts. i havent played that on this whole tour." so he commences to try and figure out how to start it, and he finally does start it, just him and his acoustic. then he gets to verse 2 and draws a blank. he spends a moment in thought, then asks the audience what the next part is. someone yells out a part of the song, then he says no thats the end of the song. from there he cannot figure it out, so continues with the part that was the end and just finishes the song from there. thats part of what made the show raw. he then closed with "undeniable."
as far as musicianship goes, i expected good things considering he's fairly well known. the band consisted of kearney who played acoustic as well as some piano, 2 electric guitar players, (one of which was a multi-instrumentalist which i will get to momentarily), a bass player and a drummer. the drummer didnt impress me, but he hit his licks. the stage left guitar player played and was the primary background vocalist. he did well i was impressed with him. the stage right guitar player i was probably most impressed with. he played electric, one song picked up kearney's acoustic, one song played played bass as the bass player played piano, went back to play electric until later when he played the lap steel for 2 songs. and for one song, played an accordion of all things. oh and he sang too. now how incredible is that? like i mentioned previously the bass player played piano some, at one point he also had his bass strapped on and, while sitting at the piano, would play a piano lick and then play a bass line and alternate that a few times. i was not disappointed. it certainly was not a packed house, and it probably could've been less than $25, but it was his first headline show in Austin and i was most impressed with mr. kearney. if you click the pic below, it takes you to a show he recorded about a yr ago. so you can have a little taste of what we experienced. enjoy!
cheers
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