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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > August > 28 > Entry
Review: Jon Dee Graham first night back at Continental
A phoenix rose from its ashes Wednesday night at the Continental Club. It was Jon Dee Graham’s first gig since a near-fatal car crash a month prior laid him up at Brackenridge with three broken ribs, a concussion, and internal bleeding. In a pre-show interview, Graham was feeling no pain. That’s because, he said, he was on OxyContin. He relayed how smoking saved his life, telling of the cigarette he snuck while in the hospital and how the severe vomiting it triggered alerted doctors that he needed his spleen removed … stat. He also talked about the antibiotics required to subside perilous fevers, the 45 stitches running along his torso, and how the realignment of his body makes it susceptible to high altitudes. “Another lifelong dream crushed,” he said. “I can’t climb Mt. Everest.”
Ascending the stage was feat enough. And when he did, applause erupted from the mid-week regulars who’ve been coming to see him at the Continental for nearly 10 years now. (Absent was Graham’s fellow True Believer Alejandro Escovedo, who returns to the fold tonight at Antone’s after a similarly uncontrollable hiatus.) Knowing full well his first song back would carry added meaning, Graham chose “Something Wonderful,” an allusion to his second lease on life. He walked stage left to his longtime guitarist Mike Hardwick, smiled, and then did the same to bassist Andrew Duplantis, stage right, all the while slinging his guitar with added muster, as if to convince himself he really was where he thought he was.
The seven songs he played — spelled at one point by fellow Skunk Jesse Sublett, among others — included an unrehearsed, crash-inspired rocker seemingly titled “Busted up Inside,” wherein he sang, “It’s not as bad as it looks/Ok, it’s pretty bad.” But for a performer like Graham, songs are only part of the reason people pack places. His monologues alone are worth the price of admission. On this night, folks were treated to gems about $19 Advil at Brack and the rumor that he was found wandering down South Congress in his pajamas at 3 a.m. But the evening achieved the full-on earnestness of someone who has peeked at the other side when Graham said, “Man, you have no idea how good it feels to be back up here.”
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