Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Jamey Johnson 9/15 Concert Review at the Blue Note

3 hours of country music. Well, a little rock and roll in there too. But 38 songs by my count and arguably the greatest concert I've been too. I thought about writing the songs down on my ticket envelope, but didn't start and am glad I didn't. I wouldn't have had room...Unless I can find some other set list, I don't have a clue to everything that was played....But here goes my review
I got a little behind after trying to decide where to eat and finding Quizno's wasn't open, so I ended with a parking spot fairly far away. I read today on the website that the concert was a sell-out and when I got there at a little past seven, the line was all the way through the alley and into 8th Street. So, it wasn't until 7:30 that I finally got inside, but the opening act didn't start until 8:15.
This was the most rednecks I've ever seen grouped together. The opening act Josh Thompson played them into his hand playing upon the usual stereotypes of country/cowboy/redneck/etc living. The first two songs he played, both pretty decent, named dropped Johnny Cash and Waylon respectively. The second called Blame it on Waylon, was segued at the end with Lonesome, On'ry and Mean. He started to lose the crowd by the middle of his set, consisting of 8 songs for around half an hour or a little more..

There was about a half hour gap, with the roadies and techs setting everything up, before Jamey and his band came out. They opened with High Cost of Living, it and the next 3 or so songs sounded to loud to me. By Mowin' Down the Roses it got better. On the early numbers the group did a lot of vamping and just jamming on for awhile, the later numbers weren't as drawn out...
I have both his major released cds, but haven't listened to them as much as I should have, but not super familiar with a lot of the tracks. But now I'm going to have to, That Lonesome Song and Women, were great songs.
Jamey didn't say much in the first part of the show, other than a "How are you all doing?" and asking us if we knew the words to the final verse of In Color. But that changed towards the middle and end....
There were no less than five bras, thrown up on stage and decorated on guitars and speakers at one point or another. One landed right on top of Jamey's guitar. And the other cool thing was it looked like there was a cat fight or something down in the G.A. pit. From what I could tell up in the balcony it looked like a big bouncer picked somebody up and took them out the side door. And then it looked like someone else was charging after them wanting a piece of them. I could be wrong but that's what it looked like...
And then came the covers, off the top of my head in no particular order, Amanda, Dreaming My Dreams With You, A Country State of Mind, Old Habits, For the Good Times, Set Em Up Joe, That's The Way Love Goes, Midnight Rider, Turn the Page, Take This Job and Shove It, and Are the Good Times Really Over For Good ? By no means was this all of them, hard telling how many others I didn't know... But on Are the Good Times, he changed some of it around for humorous effects("Clinton, lied to us all on tv," while mimicking a smoking motion, pot or cigar your choice). I think it's obvious the showing of Jamey's influences here and for this night the greatest country bar band in the world.
By the mid-point he commented, "We'll play all fucking night as long as you all stay," which of course led to raucous cheers. And a large amount of people stayed for the duration. He made similar comments about staying and the funniest was "Let fucking Kanye West, try to take my microphone from me...I'm no fucking Taylor Swift!"
And he told us that country radio had dropped his latest single and related that "(He'll) play all damn night, because it might be the last time he comes to Columbia, Missouri...I don't care if radio doesn't like me, it's you all out there that I care about." There was some good anti-Nashville songs in there too, one was along the lines of 'Write your own songs, then.'
He also played his minor hit from a few years ago The Dollar. And he played a new song called Heaven Bound that was pretty good. One about being in this honky tar bar was another that was a hoot, but can't remember much else..
The final two songs were Between Jennings and Jones and the one I most hoped he'd play Give It Away, which had some great add ins at the end "Got a big house...2 or 3 women... a couple ACMs and CMA's... George Strait knows who I am...radio dropped my single today..." before the finale of the song. Then at 12:15, the show was over..

Just a kick ass show and this is only the stuff I can remember. I don't how much of this was done on the fly and how much was planned. The cynic in me knows that the latter has to have a lot of it, but to me it seemed like a lot of times the band was just waiting to see what Jamey was going to start singing. I got some pics, using my dad's camera, some actually looked half-way decent. I also did some video, but I think I didn't hit the record audio button, so it looks like just silent action...
After I started to leave and drove a little, I decided to go back and get a t-shirt. Thankfully they were still clearing people out and I picked up a souvenir of the evening.

I'll probably add stuff as I remember or see other things that jog my memory. But what a show...

EDIT: Here are a couple of set lists from db.etree and a blog to give an idea of what he played and order wise, but again he played a lot longer than either of those.

2 comments:

  1. That sounds very similar to the night I saw him perform @ an industry show @ The Stage on Broadway back during the first part of this year. It was 3+ hours and the last hour & 1/2 or so was classic country. The Stage has a mural on the wall w/ Hag, Waylon, Willie, Hank Sr., & Cash - he announced that he was going to make his way down the wall & did a song of each in order & came back down the opposite way, which went on for close to an hour. That same day he had a show billed as "Downtown Shutdown" where he shut down a street in Nashville & played about an hour during lunch. He puts on a helluva show & you definitely get your money's worth...if you had to pay ;)

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  2. Yeah it was well-worth the ticket price(which was close to $30 with all the convenience fees Grrr...)
    Thanks for the comment

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