| 04/0?/98 | Whiskeytown | Submit set list | Previous | |
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| New York, NY | ||||
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Whiskeytown Spilling Into The Mainstream Revamped sextet turns its latest music into unqualified arena rock. Correspondent Jennifer Dalton reports: NEW YORK -- The good news from the Whiskeytown show at Tramps last Saturday is not all that different from the bad news. That good news is: If there were any doubt as to whether alt-country has hit the mainstream dead on, North Carolina's own Whiskeytown erased it over the course of their live performance. The bad news is: They've hit the mainstream. A near-capacity crowd showed unrelenting enthusiasm as these country rockers obeyed seemingly every rock 'n' roll convention in the book and turned the tentative arrangements on their latest record into unqualified arena rock, featuring bigger-than-life sounds communicated through stadium-style stage antics. Boasting new musicians on lead guitar, drums, bass and keyboards/lap-steel guitar, Whiskeytown retain only original leaders singer/guitarist David Ryan Adams and violinist/backup vocalist Caitlin Cary. Taking the stage after a fashionably long delay at Tramps, the new band belted out each song with sweaty, undisguised emotion, a far cry from the quiet, humble sounds on its current album, Strangers Almanac. Though the rock arrangements on tunes such as "Inn Town" and "Turn Around" were unexpected, in their own way they sounded great. The new musicians are solid and the full spectrum of sound that a sextet can create infused the large club with a small-club energy. Through it all, Whiskeytown played most of the songs from the new LP, in addition to a few songs they've apparently had time to write on the road. Having attended the show, Suzy Wright, 28, described the band's live sound as "the American version of the Waterboys." But the audience members who may have felt unsettled by Whiskeytown's sudden resemblance to the Waterboys, not to mention arena-rock darlings Black Crowes, were decidedly in the minority. The crowd seemed to recognize each song immediately as the band began to play it, going wild with enthusiasm for songs they apparently knew by heart. It was an evening of Southern rock, with Fastball's Texas-style, infectious country-rock setting the stage for Whiskeytown. Clearly on their way to bigger and better things, Fastball played a litany of future hits, including their MTV video clip, "The Way," from their second album, All the Pain Money can Buy. Fastball's good-natured dual frontmen switched off singing catchy, self-aware songs that seemed somehow familiar in the way that hit songs, even future hit songs, always are. With their long sideburns, vintage shirts, peg-legged pants and Hush Puppies, they looked charmingly retro, their appearance and sound prompting audience member Ian O'Neill, 23, to observe that "Southern rock never really got over the British Invasion." And while the stage was set perfectly for Whiskeytown to lead the crowd in their own alt-country direction, it was apparent throughout the evening that the band has come to something of a crossroads. Whiskeytown could go in the direction of the conventional rock star, offering more straight-ahead arrangements of formerly edgy country-rock songs, tending toward long delays before obviously contrived encores, insisting upon three- second joke songs such as "Lebanese Paratroopers from Outer Space" or even griping about "industry people" between numbers. Each betrays rock-star aspirations at their most banal. And the un-ironic crowd did nothing to dissuade them from this choice, waiting eagerly for the encores and barely stopping short of holding cigarette lighters in the air. Still, there were occasional glimmers of hope that the band would decide to find its own path instead: The second encore, which Adams apologetically announced was a folk song, was a surprising and beautiful tune consisting of just Adams on guitar and vocal and Cary on violin, with a hint of keyboards behind them. In addition, their dueling guitar and violin showed a sparkle of sophistication that could bode well for Whiskeytown, should they choose that course. That's the good and the bad of it. |
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