Josh Kelley, Shawn Mullins & Gin Blossoms - Park West 10/19/06

a friend of mine had free tickets to the gin blossoms show at park west last night, and once i confirmed that shawn mullins would be there, i couldn't possibly say no to attending. when we got to the show, josh kelley was on stage. i wasn't terribly impressed with what i had heard of his songs on the radio (i have an aversion to songs which use the word "baby", as a general rule). i was pleasantly surprised with his set. he's really quite a good singer, not to mention incredibly charismatic and entertaining.



i don't think his feet ever stopped moving




shawn mullins came on next. let me clarify this to anyone unsure on the concept. i *heart* shawn mullins. i want shawn mullins to record bedtime stories so i can listen to them as i go to bed at night. he's got a gravelly, groovy, man voice that makes me all swoony.



he played mostly songs from his new album, 9th ward picking parlor. a highlight was when he played the classic "house of the rising sun." when he picked up his lakewood and started tuning, something about the notes sounded familiar, and i leaned over to my friend and said "i think he's going to play the song he wrote with glen." sure enough, the next thing he says is "i wrote this song with my friend, glen phillips" and played "beautiful wreck"



shawn was accompanied by clay cook for most of the set. and clay actually graced us with a song he wrote years ago in atlanta with his old roommate, some guy named john mayer, called "no such thing" - prefaced with "this is the way it was supposed to sound."


oh yeah. and the gin blossoms played too.

i have their first two albums. i haven't listened to them in years, even though they were part of my soundtrack of the early 90's. sadly, i was seriously underwhelmed by them. their lead singer kinda cheesed me out as he hopped around the stage like a cheerleader trying to get the crowd to clap along with every song. then there was the cell phone thing. people kept handing him their cell phones, and he would sing into them along with the microphone. wtf? one time is kinda cute and novel. after that, he just seemed a little like a circus clown jumping around to amuse the audience.


the music was okay. for some reason the sound was far less than stellar. maybe it was balanced for the two acoustic acts that had preceded them. i don't know. but the vocals sounded fuzzy and nasal (which is similar to a fuzzy navel, but not nearly as tasty). we thought the sound might be better at the back of the room as we were getting beat up by jesse's monitor, but no. not much better back there. i took pictures for laura though.
we actually wound up leaving maybe six songs into the set. we didn't even stay for "hey jealousy" - the money song.

in summary:
josh kelley - i would see again.
shawn mullins - did i mention i *heart* shawn mullins?
gin blossoms - meh.