About 70 minutes into the Shovels & Rope show at South on Main, one of the ladies in the bathroom who'd seen the husband and wife duo of Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent multiple times remarked that this was as subdued as she'd ever seen them perform.
"Usually they're a lot rowdier," she said.
Maybe that was understandable, given the fact that the crowd was the sort to recognize a Tom Joad reference, and that Hearst and Trent are talents who can often seem just on the verge of going off the rails. There was from the beginning a sense that stuffing the Shovels & Rope show into a "classy" venue like South on Main might be dangerous -- just looking at the amplifier stacks before the gig started was enough to give one pause.
But they started out like the magnificent cover band they can be, with their indelible slow-burning version of Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding," sharing a single mic (Beatles style) as they flawlessly executed their spooky, precise and sometimes nearly atonal harmonies.
While this mightn't have been the most hell-bent Shovels & Rope performance ever, it was chockful of soul, as the couple trafficked in eye contact. While every good performer is at least an adequate actor, it sure felt like they cared more for each other than the crowd beyond the footlights.
Which made the evening assuringly sexy, and the duo's trading off on instruments somehow touching.
Hearst possesses the larger voice, a fearless alto that recklessly busts into higher registers, but Trent gets his licks in too -- he's not like David Rawlings mysteriously and invisibly supporting Gillian Welch. (The Shovels & Rope vibe skews closer to the White Stripes than Gillian Welch.) Most of the night he scraped at a vintage mahogany Gibson LG-0 with a ferocity that seemed almost inappropriate, since research indicated it was actually Hearst's guitar.
They take turns pounding on a rudimentary drum kit, which she can play while coaxing a melody from a keyboard. He counters with mandolin, and sometimes breaks out a semi-hollow body electric.
I could tell you the names of the songs, but that'd take too much. Suffice to say that while there was a slight flag about the time of the bathroom break -- 70 minutes into the 95-minute show -- the last quarter was redemptive, with an especially good version of "Cavalier."
They signed off with their traditional hand shake, a darling gesture that endeared them to both their veteran fans and any one who might have shown up just to have a glass or wine or one of those splendid South on Main cocktails.
Metro on 10/02/2017