Dirt Underneath Tour 2015

[ramonz]

It really better rain in two weeks.

"Ooh La La"? If I'm taking 20 songs to the desert island, it's probably on the list.

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/the-faces-ooh-la-la/

[artood2]

Any Portland Set list or recordings?

[John A Arkansawyer]

So here we are in Iowa City, having escaped the Bloomington, Illinois airport. We'll see you folks there.

[bovine knievel]

Damn! Looking at these past set lists I feel like we were short changed in Napa. I wonder if they were up against a curfew.

*i say this with a full belly of Dirt from Underneath.

[Jonicont]

Damn! Looking at these past set lists I feel like we were short changed in Napa. I wonder if they were up against a curfew.

*i say this with a full belly of Dirt from Underneath.

Yeah. 10:45--hard

[John A Arkansawyer]

Damn! Looking at these past set lists I feel like we were short changed in Napa. I wonder if they were up against a curfew.

*i say this with a full belly of Dirt from Underneath.

Yeah. 10:45--hard

I had a hunch about that after chatting with the nice folks there a few days before, scoping out the situation. It's been a common theme for this tour, that and "nice people" don't necessarily suck. It seems to me the band is playing different venues than usual on both this tour and the short one I saw shows from last fall. The earlier show times probably draw a different crowd, too. A smart move if you're in it to go the distance.

[John A Arkansawyer]

So I saw five shows in a row without Let There Be Rock. That was kind of enjoyable, in its own odd way, which got me onto thinking about this tour's set lists.

1) Every show closed with Ooh La La, but I think only the first and last shows led into it with Wednesday, which is an inspired little medley thematically as well as musically.
2) I think they played Grand Canyon every show.
3) Cooley premiered 218 to Denver (I think one of his best songs in many ways); Patterson played Forged in Hell and Heaven Sent the last night (missed it by that much!) and (I think) played What It Means and Tough To Let Go every night. I don't think he played The Distance at all, which surprised me, just like Cooley not playing his other new song surprised me.
4) Personal: I heard almost every Hood or Cooley song I'd been jonesing for. What's left? Birmingham, Plastic Flowers on the Highway, The Flying Wallendas (a much better song than a lot of folks seem to think), Daddy's Cup (I'm not holding my breath for this one), and The President's Penis Is Missing (likelier than Daddy's Cup, all things considered).
5) Personal: I also, for the second time, heard the first public performance of a Patterson song that hit me hard. They are two very different songs and I'm still mulling over what they mean to me.

[Bill in CT]

2) I think they played Grand Canyon every show.

They didn't play it in Minneapolis.

[John A Arkansawyer]

Elsewhere, I was in a discussion about writing, and this came out. You folks might find it interesting. Of course, every bore says that, but still:

Now, I recently went to five Drive-By Truckers acoustic shows over three weekends. (Yes, the sort of behavior I mock Deadheads for.) Patterson Hood loves to tell stories. His best songs are mostly story songs. Mike Cooley is more...um, is epigrammatic a word? He is to the aphorism what Dylan is to the image, with songs that are one brilliant saying after another and not much more.

So watching them both tell stories about songs was fascinating, and there were two which illustrated their varying approach to songwriting and craft: Patterson's The Sands of Iwo Jima and Cooley's Cottonseed.

Both those songs were played at all five shows I saw, and they were prefaced with stories.

Patterson told the same story every time, of the last time he saw his Uncle George A. He tweaked it every time, though, changing details and making it slightly different. He was tuning that story with great care, testing it out on us, seeing what he liked in our responses and, I bet, in how it felt to tell the story each time. One great detail disappeared, I think for that reason.

Cooley, on the other hand, said something totally different every time he played Cottonseed. One night it was a straight-up narrative about how he came to see what he describes in the song. Another night it was a brief mention of this being the only time he got anything useful out of going to church. The stories weren't inconsistent, just different views.

I know enough about the band to be pretty sure generally Patterson writes like the wind and Cooley crafts those songs with tweezers and a jeweler's loop, so it was and yet it wasn't surprising to me that Patterson was tuning his pre-song stories carefully while Cooley was saying pretty much what came into his mind fresh every time.

[John A Arkansawyer]

Our interim minister leaves at the end of June and the ministry theme for that month is Letting Go, which brought me back to this song. Here's my try at the lyrics, based on Max J Kugel's excellent work:

You know the deal, you can't change how you feel, but you try anyway, you try anyway
Look for the means to conquer your dreams, but your insides are quick to betray
[You] know right from wrong, but you're damned to become just another chump faced to the floor
Carry the weight of your wild expectations, but know they won't fit through the door

It's tough to let go
When you're face[d], but you can't deliver
You're not even sure who you are anymore

Awoke from that house that was more than familiar with someone else holding the keys
Cut loose from life and the pain and the strife as you're dragged right down to your knees
The guy in your room is a stranger asking you questions that you'll never know
[You] look out the window, the landscape is changing, who are these people you watch come and go

It's tough to let go
When you're face[d], but you can't deliver
You're not even sure who you are anymore
It's tough to let go
But you know these things that you're holding on to
Are killing you faster than you kill yourself

It's tough to let go
But you know it's time to cast it apart
To take what you need to be part of this life
Take what you need to believe there is something new worth clinging to
But you'll never know until you leave

It's tough to let go

The stuff in [brackets] is the stuff which might or might not be there, by my listening.

[John A Arkansawyer]

After the Columbia show, I was kind of hoping/dreading hearing the next Cooley cover:

So the Columbia show finally made it to archive.org. I'm listening to it now. It's a good recording. You can hear Matt clear as day, which is great for those of us who try to learn from his playing. Those guys trying to sing along with Checkout Time in Las Vegas are rushing the beat, though.

Included is a nice picture of Cooley talking to the audience:

[John A Arkansawyer]

Sigh. The one weekend show on that tour I couldn't make and those lucky bastards got Sign O' The Times. I shoulda bought my buddy Billy a ticket for this one. This might be the best set list I've seen from that tour. I'll listen to it at work and see how it sounds.

[John A Arkansawyer]

Sigh. The one weekend show on that tour I couldn't make and those lucky bastards got Sign O' The Times. I shoulda bought my buddy Billy a ticket for this one. This might be the best set list I've seen from that tour. I'll listen to it at work and see how it sounds.

This is a really nice sounding recording.