04/19/2008 Blue Mountain and Big Smith

For me this was a show to go see Blue Mountain with a good band closing the night for them. The good news was that Blue Mountain did get to play longer than the typical 45 minute set an opening band plays, but it was still only about an hour. They played a nice mix of the old songs and "new" songs for the show. If you have seen Cary Hudson solo over the last couple of years, then some of the new songs will be rather familiar. The old songs were great, and they played a number of the slower classic songs for this set including Mountain Girl, Butterfly, and wink. We did not get some of my favorite rockin' BM hits, but they still rocked with some of the newer tracks. The first new song they played was Skinny dippin', which I heard Cary play solo last year and actually included on my best of 2007 mix. This song was a rocker, as was to be expected, and sounded great. I will say that the song had a little bit more of a blues feel to it solo, and felt a little more clandestine as well, like you were witnessing an affair. Little Darlin' has been a favorite of mine from Cary's solo set for for a number of years, and I have to admit that I don't like the full band treatment of the song. It was a little too fast and a little too happy. I have always felt that this was a sweet, beautiful song that had a sad and bitter under current to the song. Perhaps I will warm up to the new version after I listen to it few more times, but right now I am luke warm to the treatment. The did a nice, and apparently impromptu, transition from Little Darlin' to Jellyroll. Cary started playing a guitar riff and then turned back to Frank and started miming a drum riff. Frank got the signal, and they exploded into a great version of Jellyroll. During the song Mark Bilyeu (of Big Smith) came out and did a little hip shake dance thing with Cary, then Cary passed his guitar over to Mark for the rest of the song. It was a fun moment. They played three other new songs, Wild One, 70's, and Midnight in Mississippi, that I have to listen to more to get a better handle on. I will say that they sounded really good, but they sounded a little fresh, and didn't have same polish and swagger that the older songs, or even Jellyroll and Skinny Dippin', had from years of playing and performing on stage. It will be great to watch these songs evolve over time. All in all I came to the Blue Mountain show expecting greatness, and I was not disappointed! Plus, they mentioned that they will be releasing TWO new albums in July and will be touring after the release. I can't wait, and hope they make it back again soon. OK, there was one downer from the night. I had my friend Tim grab the set list off the stage for me, and it turns out that Squeeze box was listed but not played. That would have been great to hear. Also, I don't know how many in the crowd were there for Blue Mountain, but by the end of the night I think a lot more will be catching them live when they come to town. They definitely had the crowd with them by the end of the show.
Here is the set list:
1) Mountain Girl
2) Myrna Lee
3) Skinny Dippin'
4) Butterfly
5) Poppa
6) Lakeside
7) Wink
8) Little Darlin'
9) Jellyroll
10) Wild One
11) 70's
12) Soul Sister
13) Midnight In Mississippi
14) Blue Canoe

Big Smith is a Missouri Hill Billy band from Springfield comprised of a bunch of cousins and a girl on fiddle. They brought a great barn yard stomp to the Blue Note tonight that was a joy to witness. I have to admit that I am not a huge Big Smith band, but I do enjoy seeing them play live. Tonight they played over 2 and a half hours of music, with 2 encores including an after the lights came up and the sound guy had started playing music over the PA singing of Y'all Come to end the night. I love that song and should have known that was going to happen when it wasn't included in the set. Since it caught me by surprise after I had already shut down my software and had started putting up the gear, I missed the very beginning of the song. That's a shame, but what can you do. All the signs pointed to the end of the set.

OK, so if you don't know Big Smith, the basic set up is guitar, upright or electric bass, wash board, mandolin, fiddle (the only female and non-relative in the group), and drums. They add piano on some songs and they all take turns singing. What's cool is that they are often switching instruments depending on the song being played. Little side story about Molly the fiddle player. Cary played Columbia one time after playing Springfield, and Cary told the story of the Springfield show and how he was accompanied on stage by a fiddle player named Molly. Now, I doubt there are that many fiddle playing Molly's that are friends with Big Smith in Springfield, so I bet this was the same Molly. She is an official member of the band now, and did a great job.

Anyway, they had a projector set up to play a slide show of family pictures on a screen during the entire set, and they played long enough to actually run through the pictures a couple of times. It was funny because during the beginning of the set the washboard player kept looking over his shoulder at the pictures. They referred to the pictures a couple of times throughout the set, but not that often to a point that it would distract from the show.

As I said I am not that familiar with Big Smith, so I can't comment on the set list too much. They hit all the songs I knew (12" Fan and Trash) as well as a couple that I had heard during a the number of Mark Bilyeu solo shows I have attend over the years including No Sir and Backwater. I picked up the sound guy's set list, but am not sure how accurate the list might be. Here is why, Cary Hudson came out for Backwater and played with the band (as per the set list), but after that they played a great version of Pray for Peace by Cary Hudson (not on the set list), so I am not sure yet how well the set list matches up to the actual show. When I am done with mixing the show and get it cut up into tracks I will post the set list for all to enjoy.

I did record both shows this night, and when I get them done I will post links to my website to download the show.