Chagall Guevara (with Over The Rhine) at The Ryman (reviewed by BQN)
Chagall Guevara
w/ Over the Rhine
Ryman Auditorium
Nashville, TN
July 2, 2022
(Reviewed by Brian Quincy Newcomb)
Fans who gathered from around the nation and beyond to witness the reunion of this much-lauded band 30 years after their inglorious break-up may have hoped that this concert represented a re-boot. But the concert t-shirts designed for this performance said it all: “Chagall Guevara – World Tour” with this solitary Nashville date listed. If this was indeed both a reunion and a final bow for a band long held near and dear in the hearts of their fans, it was a blow-out of most exquisite and robust design. The one-night-only gig brought a nearly full house of alternative rock enthusiasts together in Nashville’s sacred hall to honor the music of a band that many believed had the talent, chutzpah, and musical chemistry to break into the larger, mainstream rock & pop universe.
Opening the show was rural Ohio band Over the Rhine, who got their start in Cincinnati and now live on a farm where they host the yearly Nowhere Else Festival. The husband-and-wife duo, Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler offered an intimate set emphasizing their ballads and folk leanings. They opened with Detweiler on the piano, playing “Latter Days,” a song that connects with the tense uncertainty in our world. They followed it with one of their lovelier pop songs, “Born,” putting Bergquist’s emotionally moving vocal style on full display. The sexy “Trouble” followed, with Detweiler adding a certain bossa nova/tango flair to his wife’s sultry delivery. They followed with the subtle earthiness of “Sacred Ground” and “The Seahorse” with Detweiler joining Bergquist on acoustic guitar. He returned to the piano for two newer songs, “Bella Luna” and “Heron Blue.” Bergquist commented that they were definitely the quiet part of the evening, but as is often true, Over the Rhine offers up a satisfying blend of artful lyrics and melodic beauty.
Observant and knowledgeable fans would have recognized that the former revival chapel contained a large contingent of local music artists and industry cognoscenti in the crowd. But when the notorious wrong number recording, “The Wrong George” played through the sound system and the lights dimmed, the anticipation grew as the focus was drawn to the curtained stage.
The sound of the twin guitars of Lynn Nichols and Dave Perkins playing the opening licks of “Tale o’ the Twister” filled the air before the curtains parted to display a massive backdrop of the album cover from Halcyon Days, the long-awaited second studio album which had been released to the general market a day earlier. Frontman Steve Taylor, tall, thin, and in constant motion, was center stage and eager to articulate all the song’s smart, often humorous lyrics. After a quick four count from drummer Mike Mead, followed by the big opening power chords, the band was on to “I Need Somebody,” with its hooky chorus that cries out for fans to sing along. In short order, the band leapt into the fast, ringing guitar chords of “Got Any Change?” from the new release. As Perkins delivered a searing guitar solo, it was apparent to anyone familiar with the band’s robust, textured recordings, that they were delivering these songs with all the polish and the punch that first made the band a club favorite back in 1991.
Pausing for a moment to take it all in, Taylor told the crowd that he knew many in the room weren’t sure that this concert would ever materialize. “But here we are,” he said, opening his arms to indicate the band, the enthusiastic crowd, and the vaunted venue, getting a loud, rapturous response. Then establishing some rules for the road, Taylor said, this is Chagall Guevara, so obviously not into the standard rock concert clichés. But with a nod to Motley Crue’s Vince Neil (who was playing down the street,) he put on a high rock singer voice to give us a “How’s everybody doing tonight?” As an example of cliché-busting rock songs, the band kicked off “Escher’s World,” a hooky tribute to the upside-down, inside-out life in the modern world. Mike Mead and bassist John Mark Painter then launched the funky “Play God,” before Perkins’ bluesy guitar riff kicked the song into overdrive, the audience echoing back the line, “How’d you get so good?” as Taylor skipped, jumped, and stomped around the stage.
In the brief break, Taylor thanked all the band’s spouses, but first misspoke, likely as a joke, saying “for over 30 years we’ve all been married to the same woman,” quickly clarifying and thanking the five band member’s wives by name. They briefly struggled to fall into sync on their newest single, “Resurrection #9,” but got there eventually. While the song rocks as hard as any of the band’s earlier work, Perkins moved to sit down for a few minutes, a reminder that the guitarist is living with cancer. They struggled again briefly at the beginning of “Surrender,” another track from Halcyon Days. Nichols and Perkins took a second to get their Rolling Stones-like guitar chemistry in sync. Once they found the groove, though, and got into the cross-cut style of call & response, it was powerful and effective. Following that quick save, Taylor joked that they hadn’t been out playing shows for weeks on end and had “no muscle memory” to fall back on as they surveyed each new song. The title track of Halcyon Days then kicked in, and again Perkins’ solo was bluesy, melodic, and dripping with emotion.
As the strains of the familiar “Can You Feel the Chains?” faded, Taylor took a moment to recognize all the support crew who had helped the band both back in their early days, and again in this moment. An emotional Perkins produced his old straw cowboy hat that he said he originally purchased back when playing guitar for Jerry Jeff Walker but also wore at the classic Cornerstone Festival set by the band. He said he was giving the hat to longtime Chagall uber-fan and agitator, Elias Coblentz, who band members several times thanked for cajoling and nagging them to release The Last Amen live album and to record some new tunes for their fans. Then they kicked off the fast country jam, “Still Know Your Number By Heart,” a classic tale of a criminal’s romance with his parole officer. Back in the day, Taylor often did an imitation of clogging during the mid-song breakout and brought fans out of the crowd to stomp around the stage. On that night at the Ryman, however, they introduced a champion clogger in white shoes and a red cowboy shirt to give an exhibit of how it’s really done.
As the band moved into “Take Me Back to Love Canal,” the audience began singing the appropriate “oohs” throughout. Perkins played a long, bluesy guitar intro to the big, intense rocker, “Monkey Grinder,” which was brought to an explosive conclusion. “Violent Blue” also got off to a brief wrong start, but once everyone was on the same page, it was a concert highlight. Perkins sang lead on “If It All Comes True,” and then the band closed their set proper with a big, bold rendition of “Murder in the Big House.” During the band’s mid-song jam, Taylor attempted his once famous cartwheel, although now post-60 he of course gets points for effort even if he didn’t quite reach the full 90-degree extension.
Returning for their first encores, the band dove right into “Candy Guru,” then gave a blistering rendition of their cover of Mark Heard’s “Treasure of the Broken Land.” Perkins and Taylor shared vocal duties, surprise guest Phil Madeira seemed to appear out of nowhere with a grand piano, and Perkins added a tasty harmonica solo and his “All the may to Macon!” shouts that pay homage both to Heard’s ancestral home and Mott The Hoople’s “All The Way From Memphis.” By the time Taylor entreated the crowd to sing one more a capella chorus, throats raw, it was clear that it would all be left on the stage that night.
After another round of rhythmic applause and cries for more encores, Mike Mead returned with a drum solo, only to be joined on timbales and a stand-up Latin percussion set-up by Sean Paddock, the teacher and former student trading drum licks back and forth. Soon, the rest of the band returned, and Mead counted off the intro to “Love Is a Dead Language,” with Perkins leaning into his guitar’s overdriven feedback sound, and featuring a melodic solo from Nichols. Next up, the band delivered a rollicking cover of the Spirit classic, “I Got a Line on You,” and then they closed out the glorious night of celebration with Van Morrison’s “Gloria” with Perkins again taking the lead vocal. The band was joined on the garage rock classic by the Nashville Soccer Club’s unofficial mascot, “Soccer Moses,” a.k.a. Stephen Mason of the band Jars of Clay.
Without a doubt, this was one for the history books; a fun gathering of the tribe, a reunion of a much loved and celebrated band that was thwarted by record company mismanagement from achieving their expected potential, and a chance to hear and honor that music for all that it came to mean to many. For those committed fans who dug deep and financed the Kickstarter, and many who traveled many miles to be in Nashville for this occasion, Taylor and Chagall Guevara threw two after-party/jam sessions Sunday evening in the legendary Blue Room of Jack White’s Third Man Records. Highlights included a potent cover of The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and a tongue-in-cheek rendition of Beyoncê’s “Single Ladies,” with Taylor’s Perfect Foil line-up also offering a blistering version of “Only a Ride,” and the core Chagall members revisiting “Monkey Grinder,” featuring lead vocal cameos from a number of audience members.
(reviewed by Brian Quincy Newcomb)
The True Tunes Podcast conversation with Chagall Guevara drops on 7/19/22 at around 7pm CST.
