Music / live review
Review: The Texas Gentlemen, Thekla
Beau Bedford, Nik Lee, Daniel Creamer, Matt McDonald and Ryan Ake are The Texas Gentlemen, a posse of session musician who “were lured out of the studio to the Newport Folk Festival, where they were joined by iconic troubadour Kris Kristofferson, making his first Newport appearance in more than 45 years. Rolling Stone called it one of the festival’s “most exciting sets.”” But how did they fare on a wet, miserable Friday night performing for a bijou crowd at the Thekla? Well, the evening got off to a rambunctious start with a great local support set from Foreign Affairs, a sibling duo comprising Adam and Lawrence Purnel – the former on lead guitar, backing vox & bass drum, the latter on lead vox, guitar, snare & harp – and the pair kicked up a righteous harmonious racket.
The guys delivered a half dozen or so songs that mixed up boisterous blues with a raw country feel and a knack for finding a catchy choruses and hooks. Lawrence has a massive powerful voice, ranging from a soulful roar to a falsetto, and harmonized beautifully with his brother. Adam played some excellent slide and picked out plenty of tasty licks and solos, and the pair surprised with their songs – plenty of time changes and some less obvious twists and turns in the structures.
The majority of the set was originals (Chris Stapleton’s Tennessee Whiskey was delivered with aplomb) and hearing the material it’s easy to see why they’re getting media attention: Name On It was a tricky little number with twisty entertaining lyrics and We Don’t Know started out slow, easy and folky before, frankly, rocking out. Piece of Work really stood out with a Bo Diddley beat, swaggering slide and punchy lyrics. This was a confident and assured performance, great material and an engaging performance, yet another indication of just how healthy the local scene is right now.
is needed now More than ever
As for the headliners, well The Texas Gentlemen were absolutely sensational, their debut Tx Jelly is undoubtedly a sterling piece of work but the band really, really tore the songs apart on stage. The Gents certainly share DNA with plenty of great American outfits, so there’s the rootsy heft of The Band underlying the greasy swagger of Little Feat; jazzy vibes and sophisticated licks reminiscent of Steely Dan and every so often the band morphed a tune into a Santana wig-out. And as for the vocals, well the three part harmonies were sublime, new song Skyway Street Car had the full-on Crosby, Stills and Nash thang in excelsis.
The above said the Gents had a homogeneity to their sound that belied their influences and managed to splice together disparate genres into a groovesome Texas queso. Dream Along was a pure tear jerking Nashville waltz and their cover of Crazy hit a similar country vibe and yet they funked it right up with a Meters cover and closed the set with an outrageous three guitar psyche cover of Shakin’ All Over that had the whole boat rocking. In fact the crowd gave the band an uproarious reception all night and the band responded with banter and glee, clearly lost in the music and having a blast.
With just the one recording so far the Gents naturally dipped in to their record collections and a Band double whammy (The Shape I’m In seamlessly joined to Ophelia) really stoked up the crowd, however, Superstitious was an original, a sultry rendering that only missed a glitter ball above the band, with the band wryly apologising for it not being the expected cover.
Let the Good Times Roll (the sole encore alas) finished the night beautifully, a rollicking riotous end to a high quality night of peerless music. The band deserved a far bigger audience (although in fairness there were three other big ABC gigs clashing with this show) but they played the show with the same commitment as if it were sold out, so credit to them for that and credit to he audience for making this a contender for gig of the year.
The Texas Gentlemen: The Thekla, Friday 2nd February.
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