The Jayhawks; New City Suburbs August 24, 2003

My little city on the prairie is known for few things; Wayne Gretzky, bitterly cold winters and being home to the world's biggest shopping mall would pretty much top the casual observer's list of Fun Factoids about Edmonton. Your humble correspondent would now like to add "alt-country hotbed" to the list. Okay, maybe "hotbed" is an overstatement, but if one was to go by the mass love-in that was The Jayhawks' visit to our town, it's a forgivable one. Most twang shows in Edmonton draw respectable turnouts, but this was the biggest since last year's Wilco gig. Like Wilco, The 'hawks came to town riding waves of praise for their new record Rainy Day Music and thus had hype on their side. Now me, I haven't really soaked in the new record, but my inital take was taht it is far too precious, a trait that seems to have dogged the Jayhawks records from the git go. Consequently, I was anticipating a laid back, acoustic effort from the Minnesota quartet. I was wrong. After sharing a pitcher upstairs, me and my concert buddy for the evening caught the last half of a set by Calgary's Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir. Their line up consisted of a guitarist, banjo player, stand-up bass and a drummer whose kit included pots, pans, milk jugs and hubcaps. They played a warped breed of country-blues, including a dynamite Son House cover and will certainly get some more of my money next time they're up Highway 2.
But on to the main evernt. The Jayhawks took the stage early to some mad love and launched into a heavy "Life Floats By" from their "pop" record, Smile, knocking any thoughts of mellowness out of my head for a while. Live, the band has teeth, something that never seems to come across on record, with Gary Louris's work on a gorgeous vintage Gibson SG putting some welcome grit into the band's sunshiny sound. The night consisted of a good balance between some ballsy pop-rock numbers (including a pumped-up "Save It For A Rainy Day" off the new record) and Neil Young-ish acoustic work (including a cover of the grubby icon's "Expecting To Fly."). No matter which way the band went, the Edmonton crowd zigged with 'em. The band noticed it too, and Louris' declarations of "you're a great crowd" were well beyond typical "Thank you, Cleveland!" rock-isms. The man was genuinely impressed (and rightfully so: we Edmontonians are friendly folk). The show did have it's low spots: drummer Tim O'Regan's meandering folksy compositions generally left me cold and the fat, bearded goof who kept belting out the choruses of nearly every fucking song at the top of his lungs got on my nerves about 5 seconds in, but those are small complaints. There's nothing better (in my book) than leaving a show on a warm late summer evening knowing full well that the 25 buck ticket was money well-spent. So thank you, Jayhawks and come back real soon. Edmonton loves you.