ROCK REPORT: Alejandro Escovedo

I was worried that, after his recent serious illness and his very slow, sad last album and the addition of an orchestra section--an ORCHESTRA section--that Alejandro Escovedo might be laying off the rock.

I was wrong.

Escovedo worked the HighDive last night in fabulous fashion. He took the stage looking very very much as if he might pull some notecards out of his blazer pocket and begin delivering a lecture on the economics of Peru's market culture. But it was not to be, for he had a little lesson to deliver on the art of rockin' it punk-gone-country-gone-symphonic.

The stage was almost as crowded as the audience, sad to say, with a cellist, a violinist, a guy on pedal steel and Apple ibook, a drummer, Alejandro and his guitars, a bass player, and a lead guitarist. (Apparently, they've been playing with two cellists and two violins, but left one set at home.) The sound was fantastic (but too loud. It's always too loud, but maybe they were planning for more people to be there soaking up the sound). They brought their own sound guy and thanked him repeatedly.

The music was awesome--some of the slower stuff, but lots of big, lush, forceful, intense stuff too. It wasn't raucous, or boisterous, really, just intense. And beautiful and loud, and the flimsy hollow floor of the HD resonated like a hundred people were jumping up and down on it, but it was just the music.

The crowd did get a bit bigger, but it never did get very crowded at all. And the crowd was pretty good, as a crowd--not too much talking, hardly any smoking, not too much of the general ass-hattery you see at shows. I saw quite a number of people I like to see at a show. Amanda, Door Vixen of MnMs, and I had a mutual appreciation moment dedicated to the pleasantness of seeing each other at all kinds of the good shows. Overall: Grade A evening. Plus, early show, so we were out of there by 10:30 (and the tanktop dancing kids were in by 11:00. It's distressing that the show turnout was so poor, and we were all nodding along like "yeah, well, Wednesday, you know, it's cold, can't expect too much... and then all these people come out at 11:00 dressed in way too little to just hang out to a mediocre DJ.)

Anyway. Alejandro. Jolly good show.