Jayhawks Play Full 'Hollywood Town Hall' LP in New York

Posted on Jan 21st 2011 11:00AM by Eric R. Danton
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Jordi Vidal, Redferns

A sign at the door promised two sets, but the Jayhawks weren't having it Thursday night at New York's Webster Hall.

The plan, presumably, was to have the reunited band open the first of two Manhattan performances with all of its newly reissued 1992 album, 'Hollywood Town Hall,' take a break and then stroll through favorites from 'Tomorrow the Green Grass' (the focus of Friday's show) and other releases.

Gary Louris, Mark Olson and company simply skipped the break.

"Pretend like we got off then got back on, because that's what we're going to do," Louris said after the band finished 'Martin's Song,' the last tune on 'Hollywood Town Hall.' "That record is only 40 minutes long."

The 23-song show was the first time the Minneapolis group had ever played an album live from start to finish, Louris said, and the band at times seemed constrained by the immovable running order of the mid-tempo Americana songs.

All the same, singers Louris on electric guitar and Olson on acoustic -- along with bassist Marc Perlman, drummer Tim O'Reagan and keyboardist Karen Grotberg -- swapped grins after the second song, 'Crowded in the Wings.' They stretched out here and there, too: on 'Sister Cry,' Louris kept an extended middle section going with a stinging guitar solo, and he and Olson sang the verses to 'Nevada, California,' in a lower register before locking into the golden high harmonies on the chorus.

After pausing for a moment at the end of the album, they ripped into 'I'd Run Away,' a guitar-soaked rocker that also featured O'Reagan and Grotberg chiming in on vocals.

Along with a handful of songs from 'Tomorrow the Green Grass,' the band dug into the trove of bonus tracks that has accompanied its recent reissues, including the left-off-the-album power-pop title track from 'Tomorrow the Green Grass' and the more somber 'There's No Place for People Like Him.'

The band also played a pair of songs from a forthcoming album of new material, and threw in a cover cover of 'Reason to Believe' that owed more to Rod Stewart than Tim Hardin before ending the main set with their wistful trademark, 'Blue.'

O'Reagan opened the three-song encore with his 'Tampa to Tulsa,' from the post-Olson Jayhawks album 'Rainy Day Music.' Olson took the lead on a cover of Sister Rosetta Tharpe's 'Up Above My Head,' and the Jayhawks closed with an improvisational take on 'Lights,' by Olson's ex-wife, Victoria Williams.

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