Once upon a time, good folks like you and I spun horror yarns about the bar band that wouldn’t die. “They’d crank out a Creedence or AC/DC cover,” goes one story, “as cigarette smoke and the ghastly rancor of stale beer entwined their balding domes.” We’d shudder, pulling our jackets ever tighter, and thank our respective deities that we weren’t in their shoes. The rock n’ roll lifestyle is a dream for many, but limbo in an endless circuit of down-home joints with jittery, bleary-eyed regulars is often the outcome.
Fortunately for , they can thump out originals that prolong and improve upon the short-lived high one gets from an ordinary swillhouse act.
They’re not a group of spring chickens with hopes of cuttin’ outta this one-trick town; nor are they a dreary assortment of spare tires, gin blossoms and mutton chops. Energetic and rowdy while managing to be completely serious about music, the Mother Hips are a pleasant surprise, defying the relentless hoards of cynics and cool-hunters and grinding a well-worn boot on indie vanilla. Incredibly, noodly classic rock still has a few turns left in it; this foursome proves it effortlessly.
Although the Mother Hips appeals to an indie crowd that gets its kicks on alt-country and folk, it’s somewhat surprising that their take on noodly classic rock is such a success. On Friday evening, the was completely packed, peopled wall-to-wall with the usual crowd and a few unexpected (and totally stoked) newcomers. The music was loud and seamlessly executed; the band was in top rock form, swaggering about the stage and squeezing their eyes shut for the sweetest lyrics.
It wasn’t a fresh scene unless you consider the fact that the Mother Hips are entirely (gasp!) a bar band. No canker of sympathy cut into the audience’s enjoyment, and no lingering embarrassment cut into the band’s. And what for? The Mother Hips demonstrated that “bar band” is just another name, and just because you like to emulate your rock forefathers doesn’t mean you have to be lame about it. Facial hair, great gear and sick solos? Please, and thank you.
Comforting, welcoming, and friendly, the Mother Hips managed to meld the folky with the heavy, and churned the crowd into a frenzied encore-hungry mob. The evening was a straightforward lesson in the law of never-say-never; there’s really no such thing as a dead genre.
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Alex Edgeworth is a Denver-based freelance writer and regular contributor to Reverb.
