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The fans that turned out to see ex-Soul Coughing frontman Mike Doughty may not have needed converting, but I did. I've had reservations about his recent solo material -- it's always seemed a little too safe for my taste. Of course, my concern couldn't keep his backing band's laid-back attitude from spreading into the rafters.
Opening with a rocking version of "Busting Up a Starbucks" and charging through nearly 20 songs in 90 minutes, Doughty delivered an undeniably jazzy rock show. Although his band's good-natured mellowness was elemental to the on-stage interaction, it ultimately took a backseat to the music. The players' skill was obvious on songs like "Madeline and Nine" -- where Scrap Livingston's upright bass breathed thick with life - and the set was consistently carried by strong bass lines, heavy drums, and "brave youngster" John Kirby's Space Invaders-style keyboard work.
If you read Doughty's blog, you might pick up that drummer Pete McNeal is fond of the phrase "dialed in" -- as in yelling, "The band is dialed in tonight!" McNeal dialed in to a drum solo after the killer one-two punch of "Madeline and Nine" and "American Car." Between the two songs, McNeal held up an extra set of pants that he'd had up on the riser, as he and Doughty had an amusing exchange about being "dialed into the pants" as well.
While the band does retain elements of Soul Coughing, Doughty himself stepped to the forefront to distinguish their sound. He stepped out most during the solo set in the middle of the show, taking center stage for exceptional renditions of "Shunned + Falsified" and "The Only Answer" from 2000's Skittish. His beat-poetry singing approach carried more weight live -- accompanied by steel guitar, it spurred the crowd to sing along.
The band later returned for the evening's strongest collection of songs, including the "Tremendous Brunettes"/"Unsingable Name"/"Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well" trifecta. "Unsingable Name" would have been the highlight of the show if Doughty and the band hadn't pulled out the unexpected: he threw a snippet of "It's Raining Men" into the mix to keep a promise made to the crowd, before tearing into the first few lines of Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City."
That was topped by an absolutely rocking version of Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler". Doughty covered this song for his 2005 iTunes-only EP of the same name, but like the rest of Doughty's work, the studio version has nothing on the live take. Nobody sits around and thinks, "Man, why hasn't anyone covered 'The Gambler'?" But, damned if hearing that rendition didn't make me think, "Why hasn't anyone done this before?!"
The show could have ended there, but the band came back for a two-song encore, playing Soul Coughing's "St. Louise Is Listening" (which Doughty also served up in solo form on The Gambler EP) and Doughty's sweet "Your Misfortune". As a bonus, the encore included the night's "Scrap Fact" -- where Livingston came to center stage and opined a single-lined nugget of wisdom: "Yellow is the alleged color of insanity."
Many of the set's songs had hard breaks -- places where the music could stretch and breathe -- and the crowd's anticipation and excitement built during each successive start and stop. I got caught up in their exhilaration. The band's ability and Doughty's personality came across brilliantly. Just a few songs in, I was enjoying the music and the evening as much as the already-converted, and, by the end, I had become one of them.
— 28 June 2006
