Friday night marked the first part of The David Mayfield Parade‘s
two-night stand at Abilene. By the time I made the scene the place was packed
and sufficiently lubricated on Genny, Jim, and Jack,
and show openers The Tarbox Ramblers‘ opening set was full of lowdown,
drop-tune, and swampy Beantown voodoo.
The headliners from Columbus, Ohio, kicked off in high gear,
playing hella loose and reckless, and succeeded in
winding things up high and tight like a first-time inmate’s haircut. Mayfield’s
guitar work is utterly brilliant and mad in a sort of demolition-derby way. It
sounds as if the guitar can’t make up its mind, or has ideas of its own as the frets
shout at Mayfield’s fingers, “Go here; no, go here. That’s right, now here.
That’s it, that’s it. Now doesn’t that sound cool?”
Cool collided with beautiful when, toward the end of the
set, Mayfield and his stage-right bottle-blonde vocalist ventured into the
crowd to harmonize a gorgeous lament over each other’s honky-tonk heart.
Saturday night was a big surprise as I discovered a
fantastic Rochester singer/songwriter named Jeremy Laurson as he
played at Tala Vera. Backed by a thrown-together-yet-capable
back-up band made up of members of Meta Accord and Moon Zombies, Laurson went from hook-laden heavy pop to gentle-as-the-dust-in-the-air
salvos. His guitar work was efficient and interesting but hard to classify (in
a good way). It was understated and casual, leaving room for the material to
swell sweet bordering on epic in its impact.
From the jungles of Vermont, Bow Thayer & Perfect Trainwreck rolled into town and followed Laurson’s killer set with
a banjo- and guitar-driven set that riffed heavy with the ghost of Dylan
floating between the lines.
Drove the Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry, so I drove
the Caddy to The Dinosaur and stumbled in as The Teressa Wilcox Band was sinking its teeth into Lucinda Williams’ “Joy,” with blood running from its
grin down its chin. Sure, it’s Wilcox who all the eyeballs gravitate toward. But
every single player up on that stage is a major-league heavy hitter.
This article appears in May 8-14, 2013.
