Recent Shows

Gainesville not being a hotbed of live entertainment, I jumped at chances in the last couple of weeks to get to see some biggish names live. Last week it was the great Jonathan Richman who played solo with his drummer (as I think he has been doing for the last 25 or so years) and last night was Evan Dando, late of the Lemonheads. Both shows were at Common Grounds here in Pigville, which is about as good as this town can do for a live venue bringing in national acts.

Jonathan was his usual oddball self with his unique delivery and ironic sincerity. He's very much the entertainer, cracking jokes, making up songs as he goes along, stopping to sit on the stage and talk to the audience, singing in Spanish and Italian, etc. He's also a surprisingly good guitar player.

I was pleased to see that Dando has aged as much as we have, though he's still got the hair. He did a straight-up acoustic set with some of his solo stuff, a few Lemonheads chestnuts (Stove, My Drug Buddy, Down About It), and a couple of covers by Gram Parsons, Townes, whoever originally did 'Long Black Limousine'), and then it was over. He said nary a word to the audience, and I couldn't help feeling like the songs were rushed through. So all in all it was better than another night in front of the tube, and he was in good voice, but I would much rather see him with a band and giving a shit.

I also saw Bill Callahan a couple of weeks ago, but that was so boring it hardly bears mentioning. I should also note that there were a LOT of cute girls at the Dando show and LOT of balding professorial types at the Richman show.