Thursday night's Gimme Shelter benefit show was mass euphoria. For over three hours, a couple dozen of Athens' finest performed Rolling Stones songs to a sold-out 40 Watt. I went downtown last night, and people who attended and/or performed were still buzzing off of it. It's as if we're all confirming to each other that yes indeed, such a marvelous night actually happened, it wasn't just some wonderful fantasy. I spent some time in the afternoon uploading Stones albums into my mp3 player, and it turns out I wasn't the only one who did that.
Well, here's how I remember the night:
Workhorses of the Entertainment/Recreation Industry kicked off the evening with "Connection," which happens to be Becky's favorite Stones song, and appears on Between the Buttons, perhaps the first of many Stones albums to be considered "underrated." It was a great version- awesome harmonies, and the song itself was a nice "wild card" choice. They followed with "As Tears Go By," "Live With Me," and ended with "When The Whip Comes Down." The club was pretty full by the time they hit the stage and they did a great job. William Tonks is an amazing guitar player, particularly with the slide.
After the Workhorses' set, they turned into a stellar support band for Mike Mantione of Five Eight. Mike played guitar as well, and 3 out of the 4 songs they covered came from the Beggar's Banquet album: "Street Fighting Man", followed "Factory Girl" (my favorite number in his set), and "Stray Cat Blues." They closed with "Happy" and by this point the energy level in the club was exhilarating.
Jackpot City somehow took things up to an even higher level with a flawless set that opened with "It's Only Rock and Roll." They brought some horns out for "Heartbreaker" and then for "Bitch," which pretty much worked the crowd into a frenzy. They finished with a rendition of "Gimme Shelter" that totally floored the house. Later, I heard well-earned comments about it along the lines of "I almost cried/fainted/came."
As far as "star power" goes, the next act was the evening's crown jewel: Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood, with a band that included Widespread Panic's Dave Schools. The 'Truckers can sell out the 40 Watt for several nights in a row on their own, and Widespread….well, check out their DVD Panic In the Streets for an idea of the crowd they can draw in Athens. They opened with "Loving Cup," and from what I understand, many a frat-hippie has been turned on to that song via Phish. As you can imagine, slam-freakin'-dunk. They followed that with a Goat's Head Soup one-two punch of "Silver Train" sung by Dave (my fave of their set), and Patterson back on the mic for "Star Star." Then they went into "Before They Make Me Run," "Moonlight Mile," and wound things up with "Shattered." I didn't have to pay since my band was on the bill, but I suppose it would have been worth the admission price to simply see Dave up there singing "shadoobie."
If forced to pick a favorite act of the evening, I'll go with the band that followed Patterson- Lona. For a while now, I've felt that their version of "Tennessee Whiskey" would be perfectly at home on Exile on Main Street, and their performance confirmed that singer /multi instrumentalist Clay Leverett is one serious Stones fan. They took the stage, and I do mean took, with "You Got Me Rockin' '' and holy shit….not only did they sound great, but Clay worked the crowd with that song in a way that had me reassessing my take on it. Throughout their set, which included "Beast Of Burden," "Honky Tonk Women," something which may have been from one of the B2 records (not sure), "Brown Sugar," and "Tumbling Dice," Clay had completely engaged the crowd. I've never seen much call-and-response action with Athens crowds, but damn if he didn't have us all yelling what he wanted, when he wanted. The guy definitely did his homework, even down to managing little wardrobe changes throughout a 20 minute set. It was a genuine Stones stadium performance that somehow fit into the 40 Watt. It was genuinely transcendent: you would watch him run to one side of the stage or make some hand gesture, and for a second, you almost "saw" or felt the presence of an additional 40,000 people. You know how if you're in the front row at a show and you might get so caught up that you forget there's a huge crowd behind you? This was like an inverse version of that.
Trunkfire took the stage after that, and took things down to a grittier, bluesy level. They also played "Live With Me" and "Stray Cat Blues," and then they ended with (Robert Johnson's) "Love in Vain" with the Stones arrangement. I would have rather heard two different songs, but ultimately, it was enjoyable hearing the same songs coming from two different places. It's like that fable of the blind guys and the elephant, except with guitars, which I prefer anyway.
Wrapping things up was The High Caliber. At first I had thought there might be some special secret guest following us, but when I realized it was just going to be the Hi-C closing the show, I asked Jackpot City's Kathy Kirbo, who arranged the whole shebang, if we could keep playing after the set we had planned, taking whatever no one else performed. Her response? "Go for it." Oh yeah. In between bands I ran about backstage giving folks a heads up/invitation, and ran the band through a few more songs. Our prepared set began with the "Jumpin' Jack Flash" B-side, "Child of the Moon," and then I played/sang a verse of "Sister Morphine," which my friend Liz hoped someone would play. We followed that with "The Last Time" and then we knocked out a pretty damn good version of "2000 Man," a song from Their Satanic Majesties Request. That was my favorite part of our set, especially after telling Mike Mantione about it backstage and he replied "oh, no way." Uh, yeah way. I am very proud that we pulled off that li'l psychedelic mini-opera without a hitch. Then, after a quick snippet of "Cocksucker Blues," (the Hi-C goes way deep with the rock collecting, man) we finished our set with "19th Nervous Breakdown." Mike Mantione came up and he sang "Sympathy for the Devil," Clay Leverett joined halfway through and we played "Dead Flowers" with him afterwards. It was a tough call, but it was getting late, so we brought things to a close with "Satisfaction" which had Clay swapping vocals with Kathy and Mamie from Jackpot City. At some point toward the end Neil Golden from Elf Power/the Glands/Shiitake Knights and Jeff Rapier from the Dumps got onstage and rocked a mic as well. Oh yeah, someone else got behind the congas onstage, which made the percussion breaks awesome.
It was like Christmas, and everybody gave and received in abundance. I am so glad we were a part of it, and anyone who was there can attest to how wonderful the entire evening was. I sure do love living in Athens.