Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Dave Rawlings Machine plays 23 song set at the Cradle

The Dave Rawlings Machine rolled into the Cat's Cradle last night, giving the packed crowd over two hours of music before calling it a night.

Rawlings, donning a Stetson hat he says belonged to Bill Monroe with a denim shirt and jeans, was joined by his long time musical partner Gillian Welch as well as Ketch Secor, Willie Watson and Morgan Jahnig from Old Crow Medicine Show. The group played the Dave Rawlings Machine's entire debut album A Friend of a Friend which was given a shot in the arm live.

Welch and Rawlings shared lead vocals on the haunting tune "The Way It Will Be" which Rawlings confirmed will be on a new Gillian Welch album. Willie Watson took lead vocals on the Old Crow tune "CC Rider" and Welch took lead vocals on some of her classic tunes including "No One Knows My Name," "Look At Miss Ohio" and "Red Clay Halo."

Some excellent covers were sprinkled through the set as well. The main set was closed with Bob Dylan's "Queen Jane Approximately." It that wasn't enough, they closed the first encore with The Band's classic "The Weight" and finally, the second encore was an old Neil Young song titled "Time Fades Away." Each song was delivered superbly with a fiery energy.

Dave Rawlings Machine shined at the Cat's Cradle, putting on a performance that could have thrilled thousands and the packed crowd would have been happy to stick around for more. The band happily left the stage after the second encore and you can bet they'll be back again.

Dave Rawlings Machine set list:
Monkey and the Engineer
How's About You
Po' Boy
I Hear Them All / This Land Is Your Land
Stagger Lee
Big Rock Candy Mountain
The Way It Will Be
Ruby
Sweet Tooth
It's Too Easy
CC Rider
???
No One Knows My Name
Look At Miss Ohio
He Will Set Your Field On Fire (not 100% on this title)
Method Acting / Cortez the Killer
Bells of Harlem
Queen Jane Approximately
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Red Clay Halo
Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby
To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)
The Weight
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Time Fades Away

[all photos by Kevin Norris]



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lots of great, loose energy up on stage. They seemed to be making it up (both the set lists and some of the songs) as they went along, but the audience was up for the ride wherever it happened to be going.

When they moved back and forth between Dave and 'Gil' songs, you could see how their musical selections have really diverged, but you could still find common roots no matter what they played.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely amazing show...did anyone tape it?