Boy, did I make the wrong choice between shows last night, figuring Ike Reilly (thankfully) plays in town a lot so I’d better hit the Triple Rock instead. Evan Dando looked same as ever — click here to see a photo – but he sounded terrible, and he seemed to just want the show to be over. No surprise it did end just after an hour. Perhaps he was under the weather (let’s hope so, as an excuse). His blah, cobbled-together four-piece band included a second guitarist who either must’ve been his nephew or a high school contest winner. The biggest problem, though, was hearing Evan try to hit the notes in many of his best-known songs, including “It’s a Shame About Ray” (fourth song of the night), “Great Big No” and “Rudderless” (both right before the encore). Frankly, the notes in those songs don’t even seem that hard to hit.

All of the tracks from the new all-covers CD, “Varshons,” sounded lazy and unrehearsed, including the Cramps-derived nugget ”Green Fuz” and Gram Parsons’ “I Just Can’t Take It Anymore.” The one bright spot was a six-song solo set three-quarters of the way through, when Dando seemed to have better control of his voice. It included “Being Around,” “Outdoor Type,” the priceless Victora Williams’ cover “Frying Pan” (from the “Sweet Relief” album) and G.G. Allin’s murderous love song ”Linda.” He played the latter tune again with the band during the encore, as if to emphasize the half-assedness of the show.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 11:05 am and is filed under Concerts, Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.