Northside Tavern - Cincinnati
It all began almost exactly four months ago.
Prologue
A mild tragedy I half desired but did not expect, crashed onto my world to force me to wake up fast. I'd been up that Friday night all night, with rum accompanying me from dawn to 10AM appointment with the soul sucking...that's another tale. :)
Mustacho had been whispering all week about some great band playing for free Saturday afternoon at a great local independent record store in our neighborhood. I'd been emotionally, physically drained and was past exhaustion in an early afternoon hangover mode and barely conscious. While excited before, it wasn't feeling like my thing.
He was on his way when the hour for the store show came. But he decided to come back and plead with me that my future self would be grateful and it may really be a healthy, good decision to drag my sore pathetic barely there ass to this show.
I don't know how one foot got in front of the other but I made it the four blocks. It was good, sure, as I laid hazily against the racks. So good in my three-quarters dead that as we left the store I was even enticed by the new music playing after the show. "Hey I like this! Where have I heard this?!"
Mustacho had quite a belly laugh. "Its Thao. You JUST - I mean, right back there - JUST saw them play this. This exact song."
"Yeah. Good stuff." And I tumbled home.
***
Needless to say the 120 days since then were a roller coaster I am just starting to get off. To keep the body moving and mind from severe depression, I made myself shake my booty at least a few minutes a day that first couple of weeks.
Thao, hip hop, and the Heartless Bastards -- but mostly Thao -- were what helped me get my timid spring back.
So when I heard she was coming to town again, for FREE again, five blocks away at one of the best venues I'd ever been to, as one of the last shows I'd see in this mother f*in .... before I headed out West - lets just say instead of going back east to visit my 98 year old grandmother and family I probably won't see for months or years, I kinda had to stay this weekend to "pack."
I know. I'm shameless. Sue me.
Let me also say that even though I'd been holding today for this show, I actually became so consumed in selling off pieces of furniture to various bargain vultures that I was getting excited about Rocky II coming on tonight. I actually freaking forgot even though it has literally been the second thing that's been able to excite me these smile-through-the-sad days here. (The first is to embarassing. The third and only other one I'll disclose someday soon....)
So when Mustacho came back from impromptu mattress delivering-severe thunderstorm getaway and laughed "Rocky II? I thought you wanted to see Thao" I freaking bolted out of my cross-eyed Craigslist stupor.
"WTF! What time is it?!"
Zip, zag, hustle, hurry later we're there.
And they were just doing sound check. A nice nice teaser.
Let me just start by saying that "Beat" is one of my favorite songs this year. Or in a long time, frankly. And it is making me want to play music again and again and again and again, and live.
And live it is even fucking better.
After the opening tune, Thao mentioned that we could all get our butts and perhaps stand a wee closer. The crowd got more and more, gladly shaking loose like change from a pocket with a hole in it as the rhythms kept on.
Every song sounded different. The energy is some of the best I have EVER seen at a live show - only Old 97s, Okkervil River in recent years compare and some beyond this Earth bands I caught at SXSW.
The taunting maraca or egg shell shake or "Bag of Hammers" got more on the floor.
Huh oh oh oh....
Thao was incredible -- as a guitarist, as the lead singer, as a performer. They had the music, the lyrics, the rhythm, the melodies alive in every single bone and cell and shaking out and in all of us. She had the short skirt and losing shirt sleeve and bra strap at times that may have drawn in other audience members but to me gave the full heart of the artist.
"Beat" was, unbiasedly so, one of the top three with everything the band and Thao had seemingly going into that song as the clean up hitter in the song lineup tonight.
Stomping, guitar medley, and lyrics that make you want to jump, jump in the hard Cypress Hill manner, we were all pulled to stomp down that stage and holler the truth in that song. Bad ass is one term some may use. Raw, strong passion and a deeper human message is what lives in this song and its live play.
"How can you stand it? When I run, when I run like a bandit? I wear him like a habit in the lining in my jacket."
The music and the lyrics and the pure force of the live performance pull you into a larger story.
"You're never gonna leave but you're never gonna love me like I need."
***
"Feet Asleep" has also been helping me close things out here, liking its pleasant head tilt and honky tonk swing and it did not disappoint live.
A unique version of "Fear and Convenience" ended the set, leaving us on a rhetorical question for the night with the ukele opener.
A final note: I took a moment to tell Thao the prologue I shared above. And that, full circle, the roller coaster's taken a very nice turn.
Here's an acoustic version. Go see her live. It will rock your world.
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