Customer Reviews

Live at the Florence Little Theater

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4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
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It's a 4, not a 2 like another reviewer said. Listen to 30 seconds of each song and judge for yourself. It's worth buying.

This is a pleasant enough collection of originals and a few covers recorded live by this band from South Carolina. The CD is divided into an acoustic and electric set. The acoustic material sounds like any number of similar bands peppering college campuses througout the south-there's a definite Deadhead jam-band sensibility with loads of typically indistinct male vocals and just as indistinct songwriting. There's a nice bar-band caliber performance of John Prine's "Picture Show," a decent open-mic night version of the Grateful Dead's "On the Road Again," and several mediocre original tunes their audience seems to enjoy-I just can't get into many of them. The songs have melodies, and even chord-progressions, but they try too hard to be clever and poignant without being much of either. Most of the acoustic tunes don't sound particularly heartfelt. "Ice cream never erases the heat of her smile" is a lyric that is offered over and over in a song called "Grandma's a Stranger." The vocalist sounds like he thinks he's dropping some great pearl of wisdom on the listener-but this listener is merely rolling his eyes.

The Blue Dogs have many writers in the band-and one of them does stand out. Phillip Lammonds' "I'd Give Anything" is a well crafted and performed song that is miles above the other's contributions. He also has a peppy country tune called "The Way Back" that explores the amorous possibilities in an SUV. His songs are the only things on the disc to recommend.

Things do come into sharper focus on track 11-Lammonds' "Walls Come Down," the first song of the electric full-band set. What started as a dismal amateur night turns into a fairly solid, polished roots-rock experience with a dash of the jam-band feel. The quality of the material depends on who wrote it. Lammond is clearly the ringer of the group-they'd be well-advised to concentrate on his songs above the other's. I'm reminded of other bands that had one obvious talent marred by dimmer lights-Bread, The Buzzcocks, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. I'm sure the Blue Dogs have a loyal following-they've been around since 1987 after all-but they'll never get out of the bars without sharpening their output.