Critical Mass

Intimate venues resonate more

Ben Nichols’ show at the Ron Robinson Theater was an ideal blend of the right singer in the right venue.
Ben Nichols’ show at the Ron Robinson Theater was an ideal blend of the right singer in the right venue.

There is a part of me that believes that popular music ought to be experienced in a semi-feral setting, that somehow moving it into a theater or any venue with assigned seating places a governor on our potential enjoyment. This is, at best, a superstition based on experience. The best shows I remember have generally been held in small venues by performers who were more respected than famous. I've always thought the best way to consume music is in a club, with the band on a riser any drunk could step up on.

I remember seeing Elvis Costello at a small club (the Kingfish) in Baton Rouge in 1978 and catching Richard Thompson at the Arkajun House on South University Avenue in Little Rock in 1989. I saw Jerry Jeff Walker play in a friend's living room. I was one of about 30 people to see Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble at Humphrees' in the Square beneath the Texas Street Bridge in Shreveport before anyone knew who or what he was. I saw Steve Earle in Austin, Texas, before Guitar Town came out. The Mekons at the old Juanita's in 1989. Warren Zevon and Robyn Hitchcock at the old Juanita's in the early '90s.

I saw a lot of bigger shows -- I started writing about this stuff professionally in the '70s and I imagine I've reviewed REO Speedwagon a dozen times. I've seen KISS six or seven times; Foreigner, Styx and Ted Nugent four or five times apiece. Alice Cooper three times. I've seen Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship and plain old Starship. Parliament/Funkadelic. Electric Light Orchestra. The Eagles. The Who. Four Rolling Stones tours. Seger. It's easier for me to name the classic rock giants I didn't catch: I never saw The Beatles. I never saw Elvis live (though I had chances). I regret I've never seen The Kinks.

But I don't go to an awful lot of live music anymore. Sometimes I think that's not such a good thing, but mostly I'm OK with it. Live music used to matter more to me, but I've always defaulted to the recorded document as the ultimate musical experience. I understand how odd this preference -- this fetish for the music delivery system, especially the vinyl-encasing record -- might seem if we look at it in the context of human history. "Records" have only existed for a little more than 100 years. It seems odd that of all the performances a musician might give of a particular song, one should be privileged as the definitive version.

What I always liked about live music were the mistakes -- the accidentals -- when musicians took chances, when they risked looking foolish or coming off as something other than bullet-proof. By and large, those moments have been excised from the highly choreographed laser-light show spectacles regularly put on at Verizon Arena. You can still have fun at one of them, I suppose, and fans of the likes of Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift are arguably more interested in the art project/circus aspect than the increasingly banal, increasingly "perfect" surfaces of their music.

Even in something like an AC/DC concert, the precise lighting cues and canned video clips eliminate all chances of spontaneity. I don't imagine they are pantomiming, but they might as well be. (Not all arena/stadium shows are like this, but even Bruce Springsteen generally sticks to a set list these days. So, I'm told, does Jimmy Buffett, who -- like him or not -- has a way of making the biggest venue feel like a patio party.)

These days I'll go to maybe a couple of shows of that size a year, usually for professional reasons. But as I've gotten older, going to clubs has become problematic. I don't like crowded bars as much as I used to; I don't like the hassle of having to protect my personal space and I've lost a lot of my bar chops over the years. Most of this, boys and girls, is a direct result of the sonic abuse I subjected myself to in my 20s and 30s. My hearing isn't nearly as acute and, when there's any sort of background noise, I find it hard to carry on a conversation. While that's not a problem once the music starts, these days most of the shows I'm interested in start pretty late and end in the early morning.

I understand how this sounds, but I'm not really complaining. I'm just explaining why it's so hard to get me out to even a great show these days. I miss people and bands I know I'd love to see. But I have lots of stuff I'm trying to do and I'm increasingly aware of the preciousness of time. I get up early every day. I just don't go to nightclubs much anymore.

If there's a Rock Show

There is one way to get me to go to a show: have it at South on Main or Ron Robinson Theater.

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Ben Nichols show at Ron Robinson. (I intended to post a review of that show on the blood, dirt & angels blog, but Sean Clancy's review in this newspaper was pretty perfect. I figured I couldn't do better than direct people to his piece.)

And the show was about perfect. The Lucero frontman and songwriter (and Little Rock native) brought along the band's keyboard player, Rick Steff; his guitar, his wonderfully throaty nicotine and whisky rasp and a batch of songs that included some of the band's most popular numbers; a couple of things he'd recorded as a solo artist; and a remarkable cover version of John Moreland's "God's Medicine." The crowd was relaxed and friendly and conversant with Nichols' material, and forgiving when he struggled with a couple of lyrics or became emotional while playing his song for his mother -- "Mom" -- who was in the audience.

It was a wonderful evening that encompassed what live music ought to be: Nichols and Steff weren't afraid of making mistakes, they made interesting and spontaneous choices, and they quite obviously fed off the energy in a nearly sold-out venue. I don't know how a recording of that show would sound -- whether it would capture the mutual empathy that existed between the performers and the audience -- but that's beside the point. The point of a live show is that you had to be there.

I'm glad I was. Not least because the show started on time, the sound was immaculate and -- despite the Ron Robinson selling out of beer -- the crowd was generally well-behaved and nondisruptive. We were able to sit back, have a glass of wine and really listen to the show.

I don't know why it's such a great room for that kind of music, I just know that whenever I've seen performances there, the sound has been crystal clear and everything has run close to perfectly. I don't know that it would be a great venue for, say, the Drive-By Truckers or the metal band Mothwind or even a full-on Lucero show, but it's a perfect place to hear someone like Iris DeMent, Bonnie Montgomery, Kevin Kerby or Ben Nichols and Rick Steff.

Likewise, South on Main is a wonderfully genteel venue for a certain kind of show -- the kind I'm likely to attend these days. For whatever reason, a room that wasn't always acoustically wonderful back in the day (SOM is located in what was the old Juanita's bar area) is now one of the best-sounding venues in the state. I'm guessing that moving the stage from the east side of the building, where the performers backed up to big plate glass windows, into the middle of the room helped. It might also be that the shows I've seen at SOM have been by acoustic performers, somewhat older and quieter than those who typically rocked Juanita's.

The sort of folks I'm more inclined to see these days.

pmartin@arkansasonline.com

Style on 09/14/2014

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