Been a long time hasn’t it? Did you miss me? Didn’t think so. Worth asking though, eh? Well, with that embarrassment out of the way, let’s get to it…
My buddy Shawn and I took in the Bob Schneider show down at the historic Southgate house Ballroom the other night. Not our first Bob S show together, but possibly the first where I didn’t “lose my lunch” afterwards (lunch = liquid fun). We saw him about 5 years ago in Cincy at some now defunct bar that had no heat in mid-January. I’m sure that contributed to him taking this long to come back to the area –we had to make the trek to Indy a couple years ago to get our BS fix. Needless to say, this was highly this show was highly anticipated.
We got there unnecessarily early and grabbed prime seats just of the center of the balcony near the bar. I took the free time to peruse the merch table and realized that Bob had a new album out called “A Perfect Day”. Shame, shame, shame on me for not knowing this (however it is getting less than stellar reviews from his fans – such as my pal Jeff over at http://3two8.wordpress.com/). I got settled in with a bottle of Bluegrass Brewing Company – Amber Lager as we people watched the entering crowd (read: talked shit about everyone there very quietly). The audience was slow to move in and probably ended up being a little over 200 by the time Bob took the stage. Quite a range of personalities as you would expect for his shows.
There wasn’t an opener announced previously, but it ended up being a local singer-songwriter named Gran Bel Fisher. He looked like he just walked off a construction site with the work boots he was sporting. Just he and his acoustic guitar (as well as a can of Bud and a triple shot of whiskey) , Mr. Fisher eased us into the evening with his strong voice and down-home lyrics. I would describe him as overly Country. He provided multiple laughs though with his subject matters ranging from drugs & alcohol to choking out his brother on a house boat. (Note: After further research (ie. Wiki), I found that Gran Bel had a song on the artist gateway known as Grey’s Anatomy… as well as was part of a country boy band in 2000 put together by Kenny Rogers and Lou Pearlman.)
Fortunately the wait for Bob S. was pretty short. His mix of band mates and their appearance matched that of the crowd. Notably the bass player who had an awesome gray white dude ‘fro to go with his suit / slip on casual footware and the keyboard/horn/accordion player who was dressed like he just got off his job at a machine shop – decked out in blue coveralls and big clear safety glasses. That gentleman (Oliver Steck) would come to be the most entertaining figure of the night with his sideshow antics and hilarious dancing.
Bob led off the night with no less than 6 straight tracks off his new album. Other than “Let the Light In”, the first impression was that it is just OK… not the standard that Bob has set previously. Most disappointing was the frequent use of auto-tune. Pure Unnecessary Annoyance! I know he’s somewhat of a crazy artist type (seriously check out the messed up artwork on his blog – stinkinghand.blogspot.com), but there’s just no need for that type of silliness. Finally about 30 minutes or so in Bob broke into something we knew. Nice to hear “Gold in the Sunset”, but he still sprinkled in that damned auto-tune.
If you’ve never been to a Bob Schneider show, you have to understand that it’s going to start out pretty slow. It really takes Bob a while to get into the feel of a show. He typically starts out very stoic and just sings his songs. As the crowd gets more involved he starts to loosen up and eventually interact. He’s no Matt Nathanson in this realm, but his dry sense of humor is very amusing. He especially displays this in moments where he breaks song and kind of goes sideways about topics in said songs. Most compelling at this particular show was his commentary within a dirty, dirty, dirty song mainly about “cunnilingus” where he added notes on the true lengths of time he would continue to perform this act before “checking-in to see where we were at” and then potentially continuing or maybe moving on to something else if that wasn’t doing the job.
The set was of decent length and consisted of many of Bob’s songs with a south of the boarder influence (or as Shawn complained – “He’s playing too many of those damn Carribean songs”). “Tarantula” and “Bombanaza” were crowd sing-a-long favorites… well at least I think everyone else was singing too. Ha. And of course he got in what is my favorite song of all time (not favorite Bob S. song, but favorite song period!) – “Big Blue Sea”. The show ended with a very folky version of “40 Dogs”.
Old, tired and hungry, Shawn and I decided to grab a quick bite before heading home. Since it was Monday, I knew there was only one place to go – Keystone Bar & Grill (http://www.keystonebar.com) in Covington for ½ price Mac & Cheese. Awesome broiled M&C with various mix in options named after rock bands as well as Kentucky Bourbon Barrel on draft… I could hardly wait! Imagine my disappointment when I found out that the kitchen had closed a mere 20 minutes before we got there. The bartender recommended we try a dive across the street called Side Bar. I was skeptical, but good god did they ever have some great boneless wings with spicy BBQ and seasoned fries. We polished those off while analyzing the OKC v. Memphis game that was on. A satisfying capper to a good night of music and bull shitting with my old buddy.
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