WACO BROTHERS , SHANNON LEE BRIGGS and JONBOY LANGFORD & HIS BURLINGTON WELSH CHOIR at the Horseshoe Rating: NNNN

For a show by Chicago country-rock roughnecks the Waco Brothers , the crowd at the Horseshoe was unusually well dressed, even if it was part of the club's 60th anniversary celebrations.

But soon after the 30-strong Welsh male choir finished their rousing set of holiday faves, the sizable audience thinned out considerably.

By the time local country cutie Shannon Lee Briggs finished her set of Nashville-polished twang pop -- with guitar-picking sideman Moe Berg supplying high harmonies -- there was enough floor space to hold a soccer tournament.

Considering the Wacos were complicit in the previous evening's birthday debauchery, they all looked improbably sober while tearing through their set with a Clash-like focused intensity. A few songs in, the Sadies ' Dallas and Travis Good joined the action.

George Jones's White Lightning and Johnny Cash's Big River were attacked with arm-flailing abandon before Horseshoe honcho Jeff Cohen and sidekick Craig Laskey hopped onstage to shout along with the chorus of the Wacos' Do What I Say.

It was all fun and games until someone accidentally knocked over a microphone stand and the singer got cracked in the chops. Oops. The obviously smarting Jon Langford cut short Marc Bolan's 20th Century Boy in mid-riff, threw down his guitar and stormed offstage. Seconds later Langford returned, rubbing his teeth and glaring at Tracy Dear , picked up his Stratocaster and launched back into the T-Rex rave-up with a vengeance, throwing in a hunk of Pink Floyd's Lucifer Sam at the end for good measure.

http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2007-12-13/music_thescene.php