Todd Snider restorer of faith
July 25th, 2007
The Todd Snider show that was canceled last month took place last night, and it was interesting to say the least, not necessarily on Todd’s part but, in general. So I’ll try to recap the whole night. Well, me and Lindsay were the only ones going, that I knew, and after dinner on the patio at Friday’s, we headed to the show. It took place at The Sons of Hermann Hall, which is a nice venue, really old, like early 1900’s old, and has a lot of history. The Sons of Hermann is actually a German fraternal order that was started in New York by two german immigrants in 1840, and moved to Texas after that, and is the largest fraternal order that operates only in one state. It provides health insurance to it’s members, and the members also have to volunteer in various ways. And the hall is where they used to or still do meet, there is actually a bowling alley in the back, which is off limits to concert goers. Also, the entire operation there is run by volunteers, bartenders, cooks, ticket takers, are all volunteer. Pretty cool, actually.
The last time we saw Todd at this venue we got there at 8:30, the doors opened at 8, and the show was already going on and it was standing room only, so this time we got there early, about 7:45. The Sons is two story, with a bar on the bottom and the concert venue upstairs, but the bar is open to everyone, not just concert goers, so when we get there there is a crowd of about 100 mingling in the bar, playing pool, and shuffle board, or just hanging around drinking and talking. There was no real line and the concert area was roped off, so we just got a beer and stood around until something that looked like a show was about to start, happened. As we were standing there looking at the old Sons of Hermann paraphernalia, old photos and german bibles in a glass case, Lindsay yawns. “Are you tired” I say. “Not as tired as that guy” she says. I look over and there is a guy slumped over at a table, head about 3 inches from the table, had to much to drink maybe? Not 10 seconds after I look over at him he starts leaning and leaning and crashes onto the floor, tables and chairs go flying. He’s not drunk, somethings wrong. About ten people start to help/gather around him, including the bartender who remarks “Is it Bob?” as she passes by. I can’t really tell what’s wrong and don’t want to get in the way, but keep hearing the rumors from the start. “she’s doing mouth to mouth”, “he’s just drunk”, “I think he had a seizure”. All from people who weren’t even close to him. In the meantime, a line is forming for the show, and we go stand at the back. Right where the paramedics come in, they don’t seem to be in a hurry, and the firemen come in after them and one remarks something like “They let firemen in here”. He calls for a stretcher, and they wheel him out, obviously not life threatening.
So, we stand in line for a while, we got there at 7:45 and the doors opened at 9:00. Once we get in we get a seat about five rows back, one thing about Todd Snider shows at least in Texas, there is always seats in the front. I don’t know if he requests this or what. The place starts to fill up, but not near as full as his other shows, maybe less than 250 people, and the opening act comes out. Amanda Shires. She’s cute as a button, wearing a summer-ry dress with tits just about to fall out at any time, and she can’t bent over to far, so as not to see up her dress, and she tops it off with cowboy boots. Not that it’s slutty or she’s playing the “sex sells” angle, because she’s not dressed any different than most pretty girls from the country. Kind of a I’m just an innocent country girl, and she’s young obviously, maybe in her early twenties. But Damn! can she play the fiddle. A quick check of her myspace and she played with the Thrift Store Cowboys for a while and is just now venturing out as a solo artist, and she deserves it, she’s good. She was the opening act for the original Todd Snider date, and actually played even though Todd wasn’t there, and she drove all the way from Nashville for the show, about eleven hours straight. So she wasn’t even making enough money to make it worthwhile for her, she just was honoring her commitment. So the whole show folks where throwing money at her, putting it in her boots actually. She had a friend who accompanied her on guitar, just playing the basic chord changes, just to keep the song going because singing and playing fiddle isn’t easy. Overall I enjoyed it, so much so I bought her CD, and being the nice guy I am, and hearing the story about the road trip, I gave her $20 for her CD which was $15, and told her to keep the change. She insisted I take one of her buttons, that she made herself, from beer caps. She was selling them for three bucks, so I guess she got two extra bucks from me.
Now for Todd. He comes out from the back of the crowd, the stage at the Sons doesn’t have a backstage area. I think the backstage area is actually downstairs. Walks up on stage, everyone is cheering, grabs his guitar, takes his hat off and puts it on the guitar stand. Starts to walk toward the mic, and some lady in the front row starts to walk to the stage and up the stairs. The stage has three steps to the top including the stage, and she went to the second step. Todd gets this frightened look on his face and backs away putting his guitar down, and starts to walk offstage. The lady is saying something and Todd says “You’re just gonna ask me if I know someone”. Todd’s manager steps up and grabs the lady and says something about security (I can’t really hear all the conversation), then the owner of the bar grabs the lady from the back and starts taking her to the back, then her friends that were sitting with her follow them. One of them has a guitar with him, I assume the lady was asking Todd to sign the guitar. Todd gets back up to the mic and says plainly “That was rude”
He starts into Sideshow blues.
“I’m out in this tent with these freaks and musicians,
with that fucking freak and these musicians”
After that song he says, and I’m paraphrasing.
“I have to apologize for how the show started, I’ve only missed a few shows in my life and almost all of them have been flight delays. And two of them have happened in Dallas. So this time I told my wife ‘Fuck it we’re driving’. We left a few days early to make sure we got here on time, and we hired a lady to watch our house. On the way here, some lady tried to break into my house, and said she needed to talk to me. She kept asking where I was and where I was gonna be, and was gonna try to find me. So when that lady walked up, I was like fuck this I’m outta here. So I’m sorry for that. “
“Every show people come up to me and tell me that their brother or cousin knows a friend who knows me. Normally that’s the kind of thing you wait until after the show, jeez.”
After that he plays a great show, but there is this one guy. He was downstairs before the show and I’m pretty sure he was mentally challenged, he was walking around downstairs with a small Casio keyboard tucked under his chin playing songs for folks. I think he was trying to get some money, and every song, at least the ones I could hear, were the same. I thought he was from off the street just trying to make a few bucks in the bar. But he was at the show, he seemed to be enjoying it, maybe too much. He was clapping along to almost every song, not really that big a deal right, except his claps were a split second off the beat, not even in a steady beat in and of itself, and it was throwing Todd off. Bigtime. It was annoying me, and Todd was having a hard time playing, even at one point sighing and saying “Wow”. He tried to throw the guy off, changing the beat up mid song, giving a little pause right before the chorus came in, holding notes out a little longer. To no avail. Then he starts into one song and the guy is clapping by the second beat, and Todd stops and says, and I’m paraphrasing again.
“Ok, lets try something”
people start laughing, they know what’s going on.
“I want ya’ll to sing along with me if you know this song”
He starts playing America the beautiful, and everyone starts singing, once we get going he stops playing guitar, and keeps singing. Then he starts clapping, everyone else starts clapping too.
“Alright that’s good, I think we need to elect a clap coordinator”
After that the guy stops clapping for the most part. All in all it was a great show. I named this post “restorer of faith” because the last few times I’ve seen Todd he’s played the same show almost. If you have got the “live at Grimeys CD” , his shows were just like that, word for word, even the banter in between songs was the same. But this show was different, fresh stories and a new songs. Great stuff.
Wow, these guys apparently have a website now. I was just doing a search to see if they were playing soon, and stumbled upon it. Great blues band, a side project for Jim Heath of 