Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna fame plays at The National tonight. Doors at 7 PM, show at 8 PM and tickets are $20.
Singer-songwriter Martin Sexton plays Toad's on Wednesday night. Doors at 7:30, tickets are $20 in advance, $23 day of show. Here's what Rolling Stone said about him: "His outstanding taste in songwriting as well as a soul marinated voice that can easily be compared to the likes of a young Steve Winwood or Van Morrison." I've heard some stuff by him and he sounds pretty good. I especially liked his song "Happy".
This week, I also intended to have a review of the Drive-By Truckers show at The National. However, like the protagonist in "Jukebox Hero", I "couldn't get a ticket / It was a sold out show". Yes, after all my blathering on about them, I waited until the last minute to try to get a ticket and was DENIED! I had underestimated the size of their audience, but in retrospect shouldn't be surprised since their new album did get into the top 40 and got up to #2 on the Americana charts and they are getting talked about in glowing terms by critics and bloggers alike.
I had my reasons for holding out. With a 6 month old and a 3 year old, things happen and I didn't want to plunk my $20 down and then not be able to go as happened with VH (saved by Eddie's mystery illness) and almost scuttled the Zappa Plays Zappa concert (the 3 year old turned into the spawn of Satan that evening).
But I did check on Ticketmaster on Thursday to see about buying tickets. They still had tickets at that point, but after we saw the 40%(!) mark-up on the tickets that Ticketmaster was charging in "service" fees, we decided to check elsewhere. I called my wife, who works downtown, but she said she couldn't get over to the National by the 3 PM box office close time. It would have been nice if The National sent out an email warning that the show was close to selling out. I don't expect that, but Toad's does that and that's a nice thing for the people on their emailing list.
On Friday, I did get to see the Truckers at Plan 9. They played a ten song, mostly acoustic set that was very good. Highlights included "9 Bullets", "Bob", "Bulldozers & Dirt", "Monument Valley", and "Opening Act". You can find video of much of the show here: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Drive+By+Truckers+Plan+9&search_type=.
Thanks to emmylunatic and jonicont for capturing that.
After the show, I inquired at Plan 9 as to whether they sell tickets to The National to pick-up my DBT ticket. Plan 9 doesn't sell tix to The National. At that point, I had taken a very long lunch break and, though I thought about heading down to the National to pick up a ticket, thought it more prudent to head back to work so I would continue to have a job that would provide me with money for concert tickets. Oh and mortgage payments, food, clothes for my kids and all that other stuff too.
That fateful decision led me to standing outside the National with about 20 other people who got shut out of the show. No biggie, I'm sure they'll be back, maybe even on this tour since the album is doing so well. Next time, I'll buy tickets in advance.
Speaking of tickets in advance, I'm buying my tickets for Phil Lesh and Friends at Innsbrook today. He'll be there on Tuesday, June 17th.
I'm outta here.
Tony Jordan
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