CHATTAHOOCHIE COOCHIE MAN

On Friday June 22nd I attended one of the ass kickinest rock shows I have ever been to, and I have been to quite a few. I am a huge Drivin N Cryin fan and have been attending their shows since 1988. I will admit that over the past few years, the few times they have played they have been OK, nothing great, but not bad. I think it was mainly due to the deterioration of Kevn Kinney's voice and the band doing so few shows they just did not sound tight, at least not like a band that had been playing together day in and day out.

Forget all that mess, Friday night they came out and kicked the shit out of one hell of a set of rock and roll music. Kevn had a procedure done to take care of some health issues with his throat, and he sounded like he did back in 1988. On top of that the band was tight as tight can be and played one of the best sets I have seen them play. Kevn's guitar play was spectacular, Jeff Sullivan's drumming was out of site, Tim and Mac brought their best and Joey on keyboards topped everything off. They operated as one well oiled ass kickin' machine.

The set list was great too. Kicking off with a slammin' version of "Blues On Top Of Blues" and closing it all out with one of the best renditions of "Rockin' In The Free World" I have ever heard, while slipping "This Land Is Our Land" into the middle of it. During the middle of the show the band stepped off and Kevn had a 2 song acoustic set, performing excellent renditions of "Right Side Of Town" and "Not Afraid To Die" with the band returning and joining in on "Let's Go Dancing", always one of my favorites. The highlights of the show had to be "Chattahoochie Coochie Man", "Honeysuckle Blue", "Fly Me Courageous" with a little bit of "Smoke On The Water" mixed in, and one of the best performances of "Indian Song" in recent history. It was great, they jammed and jammed and even threw in Zep's "Kashmir" in the middle of the jamming. FREAKIN AWESOME!

The only down side of the show was where it took place. Nothing against COWBOYS and all, but the majority of the people there could have cared less about DNC, except when they played "Honeysuckle Blue", "Straight To Hell", "Fly Me Courageous" and "Build A Fire". During other songs and especially with the acoustic part the crowd milled around talking, laughing, smoking, anything but listening to the music. They could care less if it was DNC or a bad 80's mix tape playing.

I enjoyed the show, the music was incredible, just wish it would have been at a music club such as Variety Playhouse or the Roxy.