Jackie Greene in Vegas last fall- photo by John Patrick Gatta
To call his stop at the Wescott Theater in Syracuse, New York the first date on his fall tour would be accurate, albeit misleading. While the show did mark the first of a dozen stops in the East and Midwest, like Bob Dylan to whom he is commonly but unfairly compared, Jackie Greene is on his own neverending tour. Since 2007 Jackie has traveled the country with Phil and friends, hit the road opening for Ratdog and Gov’t Mule and played just about every summer festival worth mentioning. Along the way he made thousands of fans out of music lovers who had never heard of him and the five hundred or so assembled in the art cinema turned music club were living, breathing, ass shaking proof.
One of the nice features of the Westcott is that they give local talent a chance to open for national acts. This nights opener was a singer-songwriter named J. Schnitt from Utica, New York. His acoustic set was largely forgettable save for a song beginning with the lyrics “if you put me in a box, put me in a large box” and ending with the proclamation that he was, in fact, the messiah. Still, somebody needed to play music while baseball fan Jackie watched Roy Halladay pitch the first postseason no-hitter in over 50 years and Schnitty, as his fans in attendance called him, fit the bill.
Another great quirk of the Wescott is that to get from the green room to the stage, musicians must first go outside and then make their way through the crowd. A security guard escorted Greene, who was about half his size, to the stage. With an acoustic guitar slung around his shoulder, and his trademark straw hat on his head, Jackie informed the crowd that he’d bring the band out for the second set, but would play the first by himself, as he’s been doing weekly at the Fire Escape in Sacramento. Alone and unplugged, the 29 year old worked his way through ‘About Cell Block #9’ and the soft harmonica laden ‘Honey I Been Thinking About You’ from 2004’s Sweet Somewhere Bound before playing ‘Georgia,’ from Rusty Nails released the previous year.
If there can be a complaint about seeing Jackie Greene in a 45-60 minute festival or support set, it is the lack of variance in his set list. Given his grassroots fan base building efforts, the mindest behind playing the most infectious mix of covers and originals isn’t hard to understand. Hearing more rare selections from an impressively deep back catalogue accumulated over all of his ten year career was certainly refreshing. The Wescott is an uncomplicated venue: a stage, a gently slanting hall, a high ceiling and a bar in the back. It lacks frills like tiers, chandeliers or multiple bars. The result is that it has an old time feel to it, making it a perfect place for Greene’s Americana mix of folk, blues, rock and country. The informality of the place also seems to relax performers. Between songs he talked back and forth with the audience. After playing ‘Don’t Let the Devil Take Your Mind,’ Greene started to play “Everything to Me,’ a request from the crowd. He made it a verse in before realizing he didn’t know the words, the flipside to releasing seven albums and change in under ten years. The singer promised to find the words at the set break, and opted to cover ‘Friend of the Devil,’ instead. He followed with a simple but emotional new tune ‘One Bad Love’ which allowed him a little falsetto crooning. He followed with another Dead associated tune ‘Deep Elem Blues’ and then closed the set with ‘Holy Land,’ from Till the Light Comes, his most recent album, which he is ostensibly on tour to promote.
The second set brought the other three members of the band to the stage. Perhaps it was just the contrast to the acoustic set, or perhaps it was the small contained venue, but the boys seemed to rock harder than in a support or festival setting. Drummer Matt McCord and basist Jeremy Plog played for a minute and a half before the guitars joined them on ‘I’m So Gone’ followed by ‘Medicine’ and a slightly softer ‘Moment of Temporary Color,’ all from their most recent effort.
Not content with just two Dead tunes, the unmistakable opening notes of ‘New Speedway Boogie’ soon rang out. The Boogie, featured on his Grateful EP has become one of Greene’s signature covers and the band makes it feel like their own to the extent that it hardly feels like a cover at all. The ten plus minute jam featured phenomenal interwoven guitar play between Jackie and Nathan Dale that went into a ‘Bird Song’ tease. All the time spent on mountains and hills has really allowed the band to gel and develop some serious chemistry.
The newer material continued with ‘Shaky Ground’ and ‘Shaken’ before going back in time to 2002 with ‘Tell me Mama, Tell me Right.’ Jackie strutted his multi-instrumentality by moving over to keys for the soulful number. He returned to acoustic guitar for ‘Uphill Mountain’ in which his vocal harmonies with Dale really shone. Hearing these two songs in a row really showed how far Jackie has come as a lyricist in the past decade. Pogle and McCord took a break as Jackie returned to ‘Everything to Me’ as promised, in his words “Because I’m a fucking nice guy. You know what I’m Sayin?” Dale’s electric guitar danced gracefully around Jackie’s acoustic. They closed the set with “Ball and Chain” a catchy and energetic number. ‘Sugaree’ was slightly disappointing as an encore, since Jackie has played it with Gov’t Mule during several encores over the past year and since it was the fourth Dead tune of the night. Nevertheless, the song was nailed and provided the vehicle for some serious guitar solos.
