I have never been to a concert with so many women.
Perhaps that is more a reflection of myself than the musicians or the audience. But Rhett Stuart “Ransom” Miller was playing live at Yoshi’s, just him and those hips and those eyes and…well, we weren’t the only ones who got the news.
You’d have thought we were all on a first date.
I don’t mean to sexualize Mr. Miller, I am a fan of the sound and the Old 97s over the years. They still rank as one of the top shows ever in my life, just ask 65 year old Uncle Barry. Who kept saying, despite the dancing, “He is really handsome!”
Women deal with this all the time, a long pace to be taken substantively. So lets just call out what he knows, what we know, what I know and move on to the music.
The venue was Yoshi’s of San Francisco, a 21st Century version of a jazz nightclub. Located off Fillmore Street, a short hop from the original Fillmore and in the heart of what is now a cosmopolitan hipster heaven and once was the heart of jazz in the city, Yoshi’s is both a restaurant and a music venue. With gift shop.
Let me confess now that the chocolate mousse cake was worth it and may have been what kept me satiated while I watched the faces of glowering men and women about us.
A local comedian opened, and it all took me back to dinner show images of the 1960s. We had a perch just close and sloped enough to catch the chord movements I love to watch.
Rhett Miller is a fan’s performer. The best tune of the night was his playing of “Big Brown Eyes,” one I was never completely in love with but sold on when he said “Sure” to a female fan (presumably brown-eyed) that kept shouting it. He actually did this twice for fans, happily. He waited patiently and kindly after the show for any interaction with fans, waving up a mother and young child so they wouldn’t have to wait through the rest of the ga ga. I ran into him at South by Southwest three years ago, his arm draped around me in kind recognition and welcome. He reminds me of the best of Texas (via New York City now).
Maybe its Yoshi’s. It was my first stop there. But I sense it is the warmth and professionalism of Mr. Miller.
I loved the stories between, not only of his path to writing a song but the characters that fill them. “Victoria Don’t Go.” He is a storyteller in all of these tunes that blend country with bounce and rock your ass off, smoothed around the edges and in time to a tainted heart.
There were ballads, but I was thrilled to finally hear “Buick City Complex” live. It was so fiercely sung that he almost wiped his voice dry. I love every lick and turn of that song, and he gave it all right back.
Rhett reminded us San Franciscans that the rest of the country thought “you all are wackos” and the cheers were loud and proud.
There were many other favorites that made the list for the fans. Surprisingly, “Question” was played. As was “Rollerskate Skinny” which I could tell he was enjoying more than myself, waiting for a favorite tune. “Singular Girl” and “Four Leaf Clover” joined his set with the umph that showed you he was pure passion and significantly fuelled. The Old 97s tunes were well represented.
He mingled engaging banter of a professional musician who was not just ripe but melding into different avenues beyond music, and well aware in these times of the need to keep the fans happy and coming out.
He melded in a few new tunes on their way, and I was a fan of a few. He also sadly played “Dance With Me,” reminding me of the part of the Old 97s and Rhett Miller and their managers that I try to block out. The part of their sound and writing that is clearly and happily packaging to go to mainstream pop. I sense the industry’s changing and where such a bar band falls, one of the best, as we all age, is hanging ambigiously with the rest of us and the fans caught between the youth and rock alive in every bass hit.
And then there was “Barrier Reef.” A song he sang proudly and in time to an imaginary honky tonk we all swayed in time to and joined in his singing of advances of a “serial lady killer” in a successful seduction and a broken man.
I have a question for you. What kind of man buys a woman tickets for this on her birthday? That’s some confidence and love. That’s my man.
You could tell it to the radio, or to the television.
© April 12, 2009
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