Show Review

For the Bottle Rockets and Lucinda Williams, their gig together at the Pageant had been a long time in the making. For past few years, whenever the Louisiana-born Williams rolled her bus into town, she has always taken a moment during her live performance to mention her love for a special band from Festus, Missouri. And every time she opened her mouth, the Bottle Rockets would be in attendance to hear her proclaim her admiration for their music. Williams would wave to them in the crowd while flashing a childlike smile as she chuckled a few times, and then slowly rip into one of her many great tunes. By the end of each night, you would wonder if anything would ever come of their seemingly close musical relationship—or if it was just a bunch of obligatory chatter. Well, as it turns out, Lucinda Williams has no room for small talk, as the two have been able to share the bill for a good part of Williams’ national tour.

Opening the show with the casual “Cartoon Wisdom,” lead singer Brain Henneman had the Bottle Rockets firing on all cylinders. Looking lean and ready to rock, you could tell Henneman was ready to deliver as he led his band through material mostly off of their latest album, Blue Sky. As he told the crowd that “an opening gig can sometimes be a crappy gig,” he put his fears behind him as he and fellow guitarist and newest Bottle Rocket John Horton stood the strongest for their allotted 45 minutes. Horton, dressed in a loose-fitting suit, calmly matched Henneman for each blistering solo on songs like “Baby's Not My Baby Tonight” and “Man of Constant Anxiety,” while drummer Mark Ortmann and bassist Robert Kearns held the steady groove. Henneman even joked that if Horton “kept playing like this” that he would “soon be graduating to front man.”

But it is Henneman who will always be at the center of this group. Maybe I just haven’t been paying much attention, but his guitar playing seems rather inspired and passionate these days—much like Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, who has also stepped up his role as a unique guitarist. Much of Henneman’s efforts on this evening made the newer material sound much fresher than what was recorded last year—and make no mistake about it—the Bottle Rockets have always been at their best when they are seizing the moment in front of their hometown fans.

As always, they made some room for their older material as time gave way to a rough, feedback-laden “Waitin’ on a Train” and the Lucinda Williams-inspired “I Wanna Come Home.” And as the crowd favorite “Welfare Music” closed their set, the only problem was that instead of playing it to a smoky room of fans who sang along, the quartet found a shy audience who either didn’t know the words or didn’t want to sing. Perhaps the crowd was just waiting for Williams or maybe taking for granted the fact that they would soon get another chance to see their “hometown heroes,” as Williams labeled them later in the evening.

Unfortunately, when Williams did take the stage, she sort of stumbled out of the gate. Her opening trilogy of “Drunken Angel,” “Ventura,” and “Those Three Days,” had her loud, raspy vocals front and center, carrying each subdued song. However, Williams wasn’t in much of a mood to lead her band to much loftier heights. By the end third song, she had ditched her set list, smiled not once, and taken a minute or two in between songs to fish through pages of her bulky song book and chat with her band while they decided what they should play next. Williams even encouraged requests, letting the crowd get a bit out of hand while she continued to be indecisive. Soon enough a scream of “we love you even though you’re pissed” could easily be heard from the balcony, causing concern that the night would be a long one.

But suddenly, with the help of her tour manager who came out and danced with her, Williams perked up. She started to grin, discovering a sweet old world of 2,000 fans that were there to listen to her. She also started to realize where she was—one of her favorite places to perform—St. Louis.

“This is a great venue,” she said. “I’ve always thought that St. Louis is some kind of best kept secret—and please keep it a secret. You have a lot of history hidden in your city, a lot of soul here.” Her words fired up the crowd and didn’t let them go for the rest of the evening. Instantly showing off her newfound carefree personality, Williams bounced around and rapped during “Righteously,” which featured a cool Doug Pettibone on guitar. Pettibone kept up his thunderous work on “Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings,” which drew some of the loudest cheers of the night and made Williams feel “honored.” The rollercoaster show eventually painted its climax with a 20-minute jam fest of “Joy” featuring the Bottle Rockets who were invited on stage by Williams. The ever-so-generous Williams allowed Brian Henneman and John Horton to kick out some mighty extended solos that drew huge smiles across the stage. As Williams stood in the center of the semicircle of musicians, she basked in the glory of the talent surrounding her, bobbing to the beat of the tune she wrote about never letting your joy being taken from you. It was a drastic change of mood from the sulking, frowning Williams who began the show in such low spirits.

For the first encore, Williams threw out her plans to perform the song “Atonement” and instead reached way back into her song catalogue for a rare version of “Big Red Sun Blues.” She rarely performs older material these days, so her change of plans was a welcome moment of spontaneity. And speaking of spontaneity, after her thought-to-be closing number, “World Without Tears,” with the house lights back on, Williams suddenly reappeared to do a gospel-stomping “Get Right With God,” a song that she “wanted so bad to end with.” Her decision to come back out was shocking, considering that many fans were already filing out of the venue; I would like to think that maybe she realized that moments like these are too good to waste—even more so considering that she had already ruined a few precious ones to begin the show. But once again, the crowd didn’t question her move—they just listened and rocked in the aisles, tightly keeping all of the secrets that their hero had shared with them.