Blackberry Smoke - recommended

[mrjamiam]

There won't be much to this - I did nearly no preparation and not much more execution, but I did go recently, and wow was it good to go to a concert again.

Local music hall, whether pandemic-influenced or not, decided to create a series of outdoor concerts in its parking lot.  First up was Blackberry Smoke with North Mississippi All Stars opening.  Seating was in pairs and quads of lawn chair-ish chairs separated from others by a respectable air gap.  No mosh pit.  I grabbed a quad by the mixing board during a 2-for-1 sale.

I decided to go when I heard it announced because I had briefly seen/heard some BBS material a while back.  Something in my head clicked and associated them in a vague way into a similar genre as Georgia Satellites, not seeing which/whom is a major regret.  But I had not listened to more, and didn't know any songs, I just wanted to go see a show.

So I can't give a blow-by-blow of the songs played and nuances of the performance.  I can say that these are guitar bands, BBS especially, with guitars for the two players switched out nearly song by song.  Sound was great, but I couldn't tell what they were using amp-wise.   I saw ES-3xx family on both guitarists, and the singer/main lead player started out with a white SG Jr sort of guitar, but trotted out a P-90 LP later on.  Lots of good tones, and although they tended a bit more to the twangy side of things than Georgia Satellites, they were in the same ballpark/genre for several of their songs, so if you like that sort of thing, I can recommend them and I will look for another opportunity to be better prepared and see them again.  Some of that is because we bailed early - pull my HFC card if necessary, but it is still April and it was outdoors and my wife was freezing.

Part of that had to do with how long we were there.  I am not looking to get short-changed, but neither am I accustomed to openers playing for 90 minutes, including a drum solo and - fulfiling the joke - a bass solo.  I have NEVER seen that from an opening band, as a matter of fact.  I would categorize North Mississippi All Stars as a bluesy jam band, or a jammy blues band.  Someone said something recently in another thread about "just give me your tightest 60 minutes", and that would have been an improvement.  The standard 40 minutes would have been even better for your humble correspondent.  It might even have bordered on killer, but I was definitely not down for the 90 minutes.  I'd have rather seen BBS finish their show - surely they didn't have 50 more minutes to play after we left.  There was likely a curfew, considering it was outdoors.

Anyway, live music is coming back.  You might consider doing a bit of preparation to improve your concert experience, but just going is also way above the minimum threshold for fun.

[Disturber]

Sounds like a great time! I've seen Blackberry Smoke twice. Great band!

I like North Mississippi Allstars, but I find their albums to be a bit like you describe their show. A bit unfocused.