Bands of Gold

If or when I ever get married, I'm definitely going to hire the Bye Bye Blackbirds to play the wedding show!


The Blackbirds performance last night at Bradley's wedding show was amazing. After a few songs from their Honeymoon EP and a few from their upcoming (sometime) full-length, they embarked on on an odyssey of cover tunes and guest stars, Including "Cinnamon Girl" (the song performed above, but that performance is from a few months ago), The Byrds' "One Hundred Years From Now" with Paul Tyler of The Family Arsenal, a Buck Owens song with Bradley's dad, another Neil cover ("Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere"), a few songs with the Reverend Scott Miller, including a grand finale of "All The Young Dudes" with guest stars too numerous to mention (which really wasn't a grand finale because they played a few songs after that).

The three songs the BBBs did with Scott Miller ("Rocks Off", "Mavis of Maybelline Towers" and "Sleeping Through Heaven") were major highlights of an evening full of them. I've never seen Game Theory or the Loud Family play "Sleeping Through Heaven", but I've seen Scott play this song solo a couple of times (including once at another wedding) and once with Belle da Gama (last night's groom's former band) , and am pretty sure that last night was the best-ever performance of "STH" -- more energetic and rocking than any GT or LF lineup could ever play the song. Here's hoping for more off collaborations between the Bye Bye Blackbirds and Scott.

Opening the show were Statuesque and the The Family Arsenal (who take their name from either Paul Theroux or the gunners football club). The Family Arsenal (with special guest Paul Tyler and Adam Symons of the groom's former band) played some their own (Shelter Records circa 1977) songs before launching into a couple of their own cover tunes: Cheap Trick's "Southern Girls" and Buddy Holly's "Heartbeat" (as performed by Humble Pie). Unfortunately they didn't get to their epic cover of the Stone Roses "Fools Gold" that they played the last time I saw them and the Bye Bye Blackbirds at the Starry Plough.

This Statuesque setup had Stephen Manning (of course!) with two Blackbirds (Bradley on drums and Lenny on guitar) and a bass player whose name I didn't catch. Stephen Manning's songs, like Scott Miller's songs, aren't the sort of thing that bands can just play, but they sounded pretty good. They played new stuff from an upcoming (when or where, who knows?) album which has songs up on myspace, plus some oldies including a set-ending "Ton of Feathers, Ton Of Steel" (Statuesque's version of "Sleeping Through Heaven"). And it was fortunate that the person who maintains the new tunes on myspace was there -- a Statuesque show without Sarah in attendance would be like a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it!

And a tip of the hat for Gil Ray's debut as a solo performer, with a two song set sandwiched between Statuesque and the Bye Bye Blackbirds. Check out his youtube video for "Queen of Blood" if you haven't yet!