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Show review: Bill Frisell & Carrie Rodriguez @ Continental Club Friday
The set-up for the early show at the Continental Friday was pretty minimal: a couple of old Fender Deluxe Reverb amps on gray milk crates, a somewhat worn Telecaster that looked like it had stories to tell, a vintage Martin tenor four-string, a fiddle and a few effects pedals on the worn stage carpet.
With these tools and their voluminous talents, Bill Frisell and Carrie Rodriguez kept a packed house spellbound for a couple of hours. The year is young, but this might have been the best show Austin sees all year. (Sorry, Radiohead.)
Club owner Steve Wertheimer nailed it introducing the pair: “When you have two of the best players in the world, this is what happens.”
Both are omnivores when it comes to the American songbook. Frisell’s roots in jazz are plain — he can even find places to put jazz chords in a Townes Van Zandt song and make the listener think, “Oh, yeah, that was what was missing before.” Rodriguez is a violin virtuoso was a strong, pure voice that served the mostly vocal set well. As Frisell is wont to do, the two extensively reworked covers to make them sound wholly original. The opener, Hank Williams’ “Lost Highway,” with Frisell’s celestial tones, made a pretty strong case that Hank may have been the original space cowboy. The Beatles’ “I’m So Tired” sounded like it belonged on heaven’s jukebox.
Frisell, without question the least ego-infected guitarist alive, kept his eyes on Rodriguez and she on him. It was plain they love playing with each other; the creative sparks were hot even if the sound was quiet.
So quiet. Frisell kept turning down so that we could barely hear him even three feet from the lip of the stage. So quiet you could hear him clicking pedals on and off with his foot. So quiet you could hear the crowd collectively have its breath stolen.
Her Royal Blondness remarked that Frisell’s demeanor and vest reminded her of Mr. Rogers and she’s right. The man is a gentle and generous soul, not to mention a guitar god. With Rodriguez at his side, the guy has the chops and imagination to turn a Kinks song, “Tired Of Waiting,” into a virtual symphony.
They encored with Hank’s “Bucket’s Got a Hole in It,” and pretty much every person in the house left smiling, shaking their head and likely thinking, “Best show of the year.”
There, I said it.
pbeach@statesman.com; 445-3603
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By john jackson
January 15, 2012 10:03 AM | Link to this
Saw the last date of this tour last night. Incredible. Hope these 2 put it down on record.
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January 18, 2012 3:13 PM | Link to this
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