As far as psychobilly goes, you’re not likely to find a better practitioner than Jim “Reverend Horton” Heath and the rest of his legendary trio, .
The Texas group graced the last Friday night in the middle of a multiple night tour in Colorado that included a in Denver and Saturday set in Fort Collins, which may have been a bit of overkill for the Colorado crowds. As the band played Friday, the show was missing something, and it was evident in the largely nonplussed audience.
There certainly wasn’t anything missing from the trio’s performance. Heath seared the theater on his giant hollow-body Gretsch with lightning fast and perfect roots-based licks, scraping the walls with his alternately raspy and crooning vocals while Jimbo Wallace slapped and thumped the strings and wood on his flame-painted upright bass and Paul Simmons pounded mercilessly on the trap set for well over an hour.
They tore through their indie hits like “Itap Martini Time,” “Bales of Cocaine,” “Where in the Hell Did You Go With My Toothbrush” and “Galaxy 500,” and some of their old classic tunes like “I’m Mad” and “Psychobilly Freakout” with supersonic ease. They also added a few tunes from their newest record, “Laughin’ and Cryin’ with the Reverend Horton Heat,” including “Drinkin’ and Smokin’ Cigarettes,” (one I think is bound to be a hit with itap lounge-y catch) and “Ain’t No Saguaro In Texas,” along with a few more.
But all of the skill and fun the band were having onstage just didn’t seem to click with the audience, as most of the crowd merely swayed with the rhythms. There was a small group in front of the stage that showed some enthusiasm with a miniature mosh pit, but it seemed more a rule than a freakout. Costumes were also at a minimum. Where a psychobilly lineup with the Reverend would usually attract tattooed couples coiffed and dressed to the nines, this crowd would have seemed common place in any setting, which lent the place a kind of lackadaisical sterility rather than a wanton, excited abandon.
San Diego’s opened the show to a less-than-half-filled theater, playing their signature “voodoobilly,” during which the waning crowd spent their last real enthusiasm for the night. The five piece, all wearing sunglasses throughout the set, featured no less than three duelling bassists to back up Harley Davidson’s voodoo guitar and Bedtime Charlie’s ultra-minimal drum set. They melded the heaviest surf riffs with deep, dark vocals to create a sweet sound crammed with schtick, and pulled what audience was there into the deep end of it, albeit only for about a half hour.
Too bad the crowd couldn’t maintain that enthusiasm for the hard-working headliners.
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Billy Thieme is a Denver-based writer, an old-school punk and a huge follower of Denver’s vibrant local music scene. Follow Billy’s explorations at , and his giglist at .
is a Boulder-based photographer and a regular contributor to Reverb.
