Hank Williams the Third (Shelton’s his real name) played Stubb’s Sunday night. Joe Buck on bass. Heck, that’s how his name is listed.
Pretty good show. Excellent show. Hard to improve on a good thing, but Hank III has done it again.
Grinning and prowling around before the show, there was a guy with a washed out blond Mohawk – a few minutes later, he was looking ever so much like a grinning death head, skull-like in appearance, wearing a bright purple Western-cut (yoke with snaps, fancy white piping) hunched over the stand-up bass. Quite the show that new bass man put on.
Beating and spinning the stand-up bass, growling, grinning, he looked like a gargoyle. Plus, and I didn’t realize this until the second set, it was a complete Country and Western suite, an homage, perhaps, the real roots of country music. Plus a Mohawk.
“Well, you have to admit, it’s certainly a typical Austin crowd,” my Pisces companion noted.
Have you ever heard speed metal on acoustic bass, acoustic guitar, with fiddle and pedal steel? The first set started out slow, just “country,” and about 45 minutes into it, they upped the volume and the speed. Hellbelly. The crowd sang along, “If you don’t like my hillbilly music hey, go fuck you!”
The angst, anger, and energy of raw punk. The musical accompaniment of traditional C&W music. Yeah, that rocks.
The metal set was a change, and I’ve seen Hank III’s straight metal gigs before. Nothing surprising. I’d taken earplugs, but it didn’t sound like I needed them. Bad mistake. Towards the end of the final “loud” set, my ears were ringing. My Pisces bailed out and waited upstairs for me. Took two tries to finally get out of there because I had to stop by the merch table and score one of the bootleg CDs. Well worth it, too. Better sound quality than previous bootlegs I’ve picked up.
Hank III has enormous talent. I just hope he gets through his little problem with getting records released. He plays outlaw country, pure country, hellbelly and metal. In a normal marketing striation, that would be three different genres that are covered.
At the end of the first set, I raised my hand, “Freebird!”
No one was old enough to get the joke.
I was still pumped when I got home, and I got webcam shot of the salute.
(before)
(after)
