Hayes Carll’s Burlesque Circus & Sideshow Freakout
Feat. Corb Lund
House of Blues
December 28, 2012
“For years our shows have been PG… 13,” Hayes Carll said early in his long, long, long set Friday night at House of Blues, as he headlined his own “Burlesque Circus & Sideshow Freakout.” “I wanted to up it a notch.”
Friday, working bluer seemed to mean a new song, the appropriately naughty two-step “One Bed, Two Girls, and Three Bottles of Wine.” Carll said he co-wrote it with Bobby Bare Jr., one of his Americana brethren who is also equal parts traditionalist and reprobate.
Also, there were burlesque dancers between sets. A couple of pasties will always get you an “R.”
I’m never sure if not taking many notes at a show means whether it was a good one or a bad one. I took almost none Friday, past writing down song titles for both Carll and opener Corb Lund. (Damn you, Craig Kinsey and Sideshow Tramps, for going on so dad-blasted early.)
My thinking, of course, was that less time scribbling meant more time to soak in some of the sharpest songwriting going on right now under the umbrella of country music, and certainly not because every few minutes another young lady wearing a merry widow would walk by. The top part, mind you… anything else would have made the show NC-17.
Seriously, this is what I wrote down: “Sounds good — strong,” under “Hard Out Here,” “Solid groove” for “Faulkner Street,” and “Irish jig” under “Bottle In My Hand.” That’s about all the annotation required. Interpret that as the fewer notes I made, the fewer points I counted off from a set of robust, literate roots-rock that lasted almost two hours.
Or how about this? Carll and his band were in the pocket from the word go, and the sound mix was maybe the best I’ve ever heard inside House of Blues. Ever.
Besides his unusually witty gift for language, Carll’s songs convey the lifestyle of a road-dog musician who spends entirely too much time in the company of other musicians and not enough time among his loved ones with the kind of empathy many of his peers can’t. His shaggy-dog delivery and wry sense of humor help disguise the more degenerate elements of said lifestyle that lurk on the margins — but, you know, every once in while you wind up with two girls in the same bed. Who hasn’t?
Just as funny was Lund, who might as well be Carll’s Canadian fraternal twin. His opening set shared some of Carll’s talking Highway 61 blonde on blonde blues, with more rockabilly and swing and a side of cows, motorcycles, goth girls and cavalry officers. “There weren’t enough chicks at our shows, so I made a record of military-history songs,” he quipped. (Indeed he did, 2007’s Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!)
Now, being a “Burlesque Circus and Sideshow Freakout,” there was a little more to it than that. Long, tall John Evans flitted around, emceed the costume contest before Carll’s set, and joined his old buddy for “The Grand Parade” and “Ain’t Enough of Me to Go Around,” in which Carll and Evans inducted Lund into their “Ego Brothers” fraternity.
Carll also brought up Evans’ old friend and collaborator, Austin singer Emily Bell, for a lovely duet he said was a new song, one of the evening’s few slow numbers. Later Kam Franklin of Houston’s own Suffers put her hefty pipes behind Carll’s pointed sexual-politics debate “Another Like You.”
The encore featured the whole shootin’ match onstage as Carll slung verses with the Tramps’ Craig Kinsey on a punched-up version of Bob Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm,” and then everyone did “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” as a New Orleans second-line parade number. There was even a jester on stilts up there, but at that point I didn’t even bat an eyelash.
Oh, and did I mention there were burlesque dancers? In fact, I think there may even be a picture around here somewhere.
Personal Bias: Hayes Carll was nice enough to play my Chris Gray Day benefit almost a year ago, so I mean the “degenerate” and “reprobate” comments with all due affection. Luv ya, man.
The Crowd: Part hipsters, part 4-H all-stars. And lots of women, some even clad in non-lingerie.
Overheard in the Crowd (after the show): “No telling how many other people were escorted out.”
Random Notebook Dump: More people should dress like Belle Starr at shows around here.
High Holiday Spirits: Although everyone was much better behaved than a typical House of Blues crowd, especially one around the holidays, apparently people drank a lot at this show. I saw a couple of folks get escorted out by security and watched one of the costume contestants lurch along the walkway in front of me on the way out, barely able to stand upright. Then the first thing Jason the Photographer saw when we got down the escalator was someone puking in a trash can.
HAYES CARLL SET LIST
I Got a Gig
Hard Out Here
Drunken Poet’s Dream
The Letter
Faulkner Street
new duet w/Emily Bell
One Bed, Two Girls & Three Bottles of Wine
Mama Tried (Merle Haggard cover)
The Lovin’ Cup
The Grand Parade (w/John Evans)
Ain’t Enough of Me to Go Around (w/John Evans & Corb Lund)
KMAG YOYO
Bottle In My Hand
Another Like You (w/Kam Franklin)
Little Rock
Long Way Home
She Left Me for Jesus
I Don’t Wanna Grow Up (Tom Waits cover)
Stomp & Holler
ENCORE
Beaumont
Maggie’s Farm (Bob Dylan cover, w/Corb Lund Band, Emily Bell, Kam Franklin & Sideshow Tramps)
Will the Circle Be Unbroken (w/the same crew onstage)
