Live Show Review
....with MP3 accompaniment. Click each underlined song title to download a digital quality MP3 excerpt. Don't have an MP3 player? Download the Real Player G2 here. Whatever you do, don't miss the RealAudio interview with Fred Eaglesmith at the bottom of this page; it breaks new ground and a bit of new wind as well. Just click and stream away.

 Fred Eaglesmith and Kelly Joe Phelps

Live at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Santa Cruz, California, 2/13/99, produced by Snazzy Productions. Reviewed by Steve Palopoli.

I've never figured out why Fred Eaglesmith's band is called the Flying Squirrels -- c'mon, admit it, you can't think of a good reason, either -- but in any case it's hardly fair, since Eaglesmith himself is clearly the squirreliest of the bunch. Let's just put it out there: the guy is completely unpredictable. And never moreso than at the second of his Kuumbwa shows Feb. 13, where after teasing us with rumors of an upcoming album (which allegedly mixes rock, bluegrass and surf music into a uniquely warped brew), he unleashed a series of ... old favorites? Yup, it was sweatin' to the oldies, Fred-style, as he reached way back into the pre-Drive-In Movie years for the opening "Thirty Years of Farmin'", one of many musical molotovs Eaglesmith has chucked at the rich and powerful on behalf of the working class. "Cryin' Yet" was pulled from that era, too, but the formerly folkie number has since been through Eaglesmith's rock-and-roll chop-shop, and the new lean, mean version fits in snugly with the band's ever-more ass-kicking sound. "Little Buffalo" (you know, the one about the big shootout) wasn't quite as much of a surprise; it's an oldie, but Eaglesmith keeps coming back to it live. I doubt, however, that many expected "The Highway Callin'" to turn up in a set on this tour, let alone "Sharecroppin'".

Still, the newer sound can be even more startling, though fans have had the chance to see it evolve over the last couple of tours. What Eaglesmith and his band are doing is perhaps the shining hope for acoustic rock in America. Forget all that wussy crap like Box Set or whatever, this stuff's got teeth. This time around the band once again went for broke on all your edgy Fred faves -- "Time To Get A Gun," "I Like Trains," "Freight Train," etc. -- with The Artist Formerly Known As J grinding away on guitar, Ralph Schipper ripping notes out of the bass, and Washboard Hank doing what Washboard Hank generally does, which is going crazy. Willie P. Bennett's new job is pouring gasoline on the fire with that incredible slide mandolin, and he was laying down some truly spooky stuff on the new "Rodeo Boy" and especially "49 Tons."

Miscellaneous surprises included the fact that Eaglesmith told only one of his patented bad jokes the entire set, and that he espoused the virtues of Monica Lewinsky's hair and then did not launch into "Big Hair." But hey, he did eventually get around to it.

(click for more Fred Eaglesmith stuff)

 

Co-headliner Kelly Joe Phelps, who opened the show, had a surprise of his own for the crowd when he exposed the truth behind "I Like Trains": he wrote it, and Fred Eaglesmith owes him money. When no one seemed to be buying it, though, he went back to the remarkable state he gets himself into when he's whipping out these slide guitar opuses of his. It can only be described as trance-like, that's for sure. And while I can't always follow him, I've gotta say the man can wring a lot of drama out of a single acoustic guitar in his lap. He crouches over it like Dwight Frye's hunchbacked lab assistant in the old Frankenstein movies while he plucks and tweaks like crazy. I also like this deadpan, vaguely hard-boiled stage persona he's been developing, as when he announced just one song into his set: "One song down, one to go. The next song's going to take all 45 minutes. So it's going to be a good one, guaranteed."

(Excerpted material recorded at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center on 2/13/99. Mix by Julie Rix. Recorded by Dave Nielsen of Technica Gratia Artes.)

  

Interview with semi-circumsized man! You heard it here first!

Kick-start your RealAudio player and put the kids to bed. Here's a very live interview with Fred Eaglesmith conducted just prior to this show by Sleepy John Sandidge of Snazzy Productions.

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