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Old Crow Medicine Show @ The Avalon 08/08/07
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I’m writing this from bed, plan on returning to sleep when I’m done and will be too busy cleaning up the residue from my birthday celebration last night to post on dear ole LAist anytime soon, but...in my bleary, horizontal state, I felt moved to write while still basking in the glow of the Old Crow Medicine Show’s concert last night. It’s a miracle I made it at all, having hours before returned from a dinner party campout in Joshua Tree that involved six pounds of steak, tequila, other stuff and a rude wake up call from the sun at 7am after tenting down at 4, but I’m so glad I did. Not only was this the kind of hillbilly fiddle fest I’d been craving, but the lead guy looked just like Rob Lowe circa Youngblood (he was wearing a red bandana headband and everything).
Ye Olde Crows, a five piece American roots band based in Nashville, tore up Hollywood’s Avalon Theater in front of a crowd that I really couldn’t make sense out of - young and old, nerdy and tattooed, wasted and sober – it reminded me a bit of the last time I went to the DMV. The five guys on stage played the crap out of each song, jumping around and hootin and hollering their way through two smokin, hour-long sets of good time rockin bluegrassy chicken pickin whateverthehellyouwannacallit. They could harmonize, they were hot and they could, and did, pick up and put down at least two instruments each; one guy, the Rob Lowe guy, switched off between guitar, banjo, harmonica and fiddle. Hello. I can only imagine what he could do with a hockey stick.
It was pretty packed too, which gave me hope as someone who often feels so all alone in her love of bluegrass music. Not that I made any new friends other than the pole I was leaning against for most of the show, but it's nice to know those people are out there.
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They sang songs about trains, cocaine, hard luck, troublesome women, more trains, some town I'd never heard of and ended the night with a Bob Dylan cover. People went crazy. Sang along. And the tattooed guy started a one-man mosh pit (hopped up and down on one foot, ran in circles, spinned, annoyed people, etc.) It was such a great show it kept me, me of no sleep, me of I'm only staying for the first set, me who had just the day before turned an entire year older, standing upright and entertained for well over 3 hours. We even stayed for the encore. So there you have it. I give them an A. I'm going back to sleep.
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