suequigleyband.JPGSeeing great live music when you’re exhausted and feel like just holing up and going to bed is kind of like being totally stuffed and having a slice of delicious chocolate cake set down in front of you. You just kind of have to make room for it because you know you won’t regret digging in.

And so it was last night at the Tractor, where I dragged my tired, funky-feeling self out on the Long Bus Ride to Ballard to catch Sue Quigley’s CD release show. She was opening up for my new favorite, Betsy Olson, whose rhythm section was held down rockingly by one Sera Cahoone. It was the kind of show I wish I’d had the energy to stand up and rock out to, but as it were I spent much of the night on a remarkably comfy stool. (When did the Tractor’s stools become so divinely well-cushioned?)

Complaint first: despite the fact that it was hardly packed with people and conversations (it was Sunday night, after all), the sound was cranked way high. By the end of the night, Cahoone’s drum kit was clipping the mics. But first, Quigley’s lyrics were nearly impossible to make out except on her quieter acoustic tunes. Of those, “Killingsworth Street” reined supreme. Her UK radio hit “Paper Tiger” was also nice and rockin’  and the understated, vaguely twangy turn she took on Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees” at the end was fantastic.

Next up was Olson, whose set made me write in my notebook, three songs in: “She is so fucking good.” When she opened for Cahoone back in January, I suggested you make it out to at least one Betsy Olson show this year, but I now suggest you see two. After 13 years of playing, the guitar is still such a mystery to me, but watching the dexterity with which Olson attacks her various axes is just downright impressive. It’s all dirty, raw and muscular, and incredibly precise. Behind her, Cahoone chopped the heck out of her kit. The duo ripped ably through blues rockers and honky tonk tunes before closing out with a slow-grooving heartbreaker that inspired a few couples to slow dance. It was a nice way to close out an evening of delightful roots-rock goodness.