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December 9, 2006
You Don't Know Jack
The first week of December always seems like it's heavy on great music - and then of course followed by a long dry spell as the holidays get closer. The day after the "Locked and Loaded" tour at Universal, I drove up to the Fox Theatre in Bakersfield to see Gary Allan and Jack Ingram. Now why Bakersfield? Surely, they must have had an LA date. They did - they were at my favorite venue, the House of Blues on Sunset Sunday night, but alas, I was working. Thursday night's show at Bakersfield's Fox Theatre was the perfect alternative - this way, I could avoid the House of Blues, and not take a day off from work (and my spies told me the House of Blues was its usual nightmare, reaffirming that I'd made the correct decision).
Getting to the theatre proved to be a bit of a challenge, as the Bakersfield Christmas Parade had not only shut down several streets and traffic lights, but made parking quite a challenge, as the Fox Theatre doesn't have it s own parking structure. I wound up parking in a church five blocks away and hoping that the Presbyterians wouldn't tow me away (they didn't). The Fox Theatre is beautiful - it has an old-timey marquee like the El Rey, but has a majestic interior like the Henry Fonda Theatre.
Jack played a set that was reportedly very different from his Los Angeles set - a testament that he was easily able to pick up on the fact that the Bakersfield audience was (surprisingly, to me, at least) a little more conservative. No jumping off amps for Jack in Bakersfield. Jack didn't play any radoi hits until about four songs in, instead leading with some of my favorites like "Fool" and "Biloxi," which he dedicated to his estranged father, who was having a birthday that night, and was the unfortunate impetus behind this sad and angry song. Jack's new single is a remake of Hinder's "Lips of an Angel," which is indicative of how ballsy Jack is to try to introduce this song to a country audience. In the words of my friend Tricia, it's "kind of a fucked up song" about hooking up with your ex while your girlfriend is in the next room. Bakersfield didn't know what to make of that.
We headed backstage after Jack's set, where the sound was terrible, so I can't say anything about Gary Allan's set, although I'm sure it was incredible. I like Gary Allan 'cause he not only covered Todd Snider's "Alright Guy," but also made it the title track for one of his albums. I like it 'cause he says the word "dick." In case you were wondering, nothing particularly exciting was going on backstage, but several members of Jack's Beat-Up Ford Band raved about a punk band called The Dead Ringers. And plenty of drinking.
Posted by darlin at December 9, 2006 10:53 PM
