Son Volt at the 9:30, October 21, 2005

The Son Volt show was one of those concerts that I really wanted to say was great, but in truth, enjoyed it only so-so.

First the good: Farrar & Co. played a tight set. They have an excellent lead guitarist with strong Dickie Betts/Jimmy Page bloodlines. Son Volt reached down and played a good old Tupelo song (Chickamauga), which I didn’t expect, but loved. They jammed some of the tunes off of their excellent album Trace, which was expected, but worth going to the show for nonetheless.

Now, about the things I found annoying: First, many of their songs sound too much alike. They start slow and mournful, then comes the predictable three beats of silence followed by crashing drums, bass and power chords simultaneously kicking in. That works for a few songs, but I wished they could have mixed it up a little.

The second thing that irritates me is Farrar himself. I like his singing well enough, but I can take it for about 45 minutes. After a while, he begins to sound – I’m searching for a word here – whiny. His singing resembles a low-pitched whine, if that is possible. He also comes off as kind of a prick. For all I know, he’s a chummy fellow to meet at the local pub. But on stage, he seemed wooden and aloof from the crowd. He spoke all of about seven words over two hours. Even Kurt Cobain at his most sardonic would interact with his audience between songs.

The newer stuff made by the reformed band was a little heavy and gratuitously loud for my delicate ears. It’s almost as if Farrar can’t think of a way to find new textures in his art, so he solves the problem by turning it up to eleven. Finally, his lyrics, much of which are of a political bent that we don’t subscribe to here, are obviously an important component of Farrar’s songs. He is an exceptionally strong lyricist. So would it kill him to make them audible? I’m not talking about early REM-style singing. Murmuring was their thing, and it worked. It’s just that Son Volt had the volume on their instruments turned up so loud, you couldn’t hear any vocals except the aforementioned whining.

The company was good, however. Old friend JM joined me, for probably our 50th concert over the past 25 years. So that was cool. We had a glass of bourbon with Hackmuth to start things off too (although I was still smarting from the chess debacle of the previous Wednesday). To cap off the night, we hit Mario’s for a 2:30 am steak and cheese. All in all, it was a good evening; but I will probably skip the Volt next time, and keep my eyes peeled for Wilco.