The following paragraphs are from a Jambase Article titled 'Las Tortugas III |10.30 -11.O2 | CA', written by senior editor Dennis Cook. The first paragraph is a review of Wisebirds Thursday night performance, and the second is a review of Saturday evenings performance at the festival. (Please go to Jambase to view the article in its entirety).


Knowing there'd be multiple chances to catch Blue Turtle, I hung on the porch outside The Tavern for Austin's Wisebird. I rolled up to find piano and organ swirling along a chooglin' boogie worthy of ol' Lowell George and early Little Feat, all hips and dips and just a little bit bad. Dressed in camouflage fatigues, they played with the intensity of men who'd just arrived from being "in country," a strength and meanness needed for survival pumped into exceedingly pure rock 'n' roll, driven by drummer-singer Dave Meservy, guitarist Will Webster and the blazingly great keys of Trevor Nealon. One could lazily say they sound like the Allman Brothers but more accurately they're the children of Leon Russell and Freddie King, real blues and blood soaked barrooms surfacing in their heavy notes. A comely tweaker skipped past me and said, "Can you believe it's just four guys making that fucking sound?" From the mouths of babes.

In keeping with the night's "Naughty By Nature" theme, Wisebird performed in Tuolumne Hall wearing just underwear, dog tags and shoes. Lean, hairy honkies all, they strutted with the same toughness they had in their fatigues a few nights earlier but this time made room for some primo slow burners worthy of early Black Crowes. Dave Meservy has a rough croon akin to young Robert Palmer, lesser-known U.K. soul-blues-rock great Frankie Miller or even Ronnie Van Zant in "Simple Man" mode. Thus, it was the ballads that tore you up this time, even though they got folks reelin' and rockin', too. Playing in front of a backdrop of an arched back black cat set against a full moon (just one of the many thoughtful, lovely decorations around Las Tortugas this year; again, the work of many invisible hands that produced a fantastically layered experience), Wisebird mingled Chuck Berry with T Bone Walker, Savoy Brown with the Crowes, producing a tight shuffle that was never self-indulgent or stiff. This is rock 'n' roll you feel in your bones and I left this festival a genuine fan of what this Austin band does.