Knoxville, TN, April 27

Hmh, not sure the Alcoa/airport area has a Hooters franchise (nor downtown near the venue), only west Knoxville. Guess we’ll have to find an alternative to the “Big Orange” in the land of the Volunteers. . .

Knoxville, TN – Bijou Theatre – 4/27/11

What a wild and woolly night! Wicked bad weather in Knoxville with heavy rains and wind, and a strong burst of hail that shattered the neon sign of the restaurant where we dined prior to the show, and speared shards of the sign through the restaurant’s canvass canopy. Even so, the weather was nothing compared to the F-5 tornado that hit the poor people of Tuscaloosa.

Lu took the stage around 9:20pm, stating “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I know I’m late. We got caught up in the hail. Have you ever heard hail inside a bus?! It’s f-ing loud and scary.”

1. Buttercup

2. Drunken Angel – I was sitting up in the balcony thinking how flawless Lu’s voice sounded during this song – or else perfectly flawed in all the right places, but then the poor girl got hit by a coughing attack. “I’m on a roll tonight, first I’m late and then I’m coughing during the song. I wish I could just give y’all your money back. I’m serious. I’ll try to make it up to you tonight.”

3. Pineola

4. Greenville

5. I Don’t Know How You’re Livin’ – “This is a song off the new album about my younger brother, who has a tendency to run off and hide, and he still is.”

6. Born To Be Loved – “Bless your hearts…”

7. 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten – “This next song I started writing here in Knoxville. You know I used to raise hell, some serious hell, back in the 90’s. I lived in Nashville and raised some serious hell there, and I raised some serious hell here. It was New Year’s Day, and we’d gone out the night before and I was feeling pretty bad. The guy I was with at the time played in a band, and I’d embarrassed him. I was dancing and getting all… , and he didn’t like it. So the next day I was sitting there by myself at somebody’s house, looking at some photography books – ‘Juke Joint’ by Birney Imes and ‘Appalachian Portraits’ by Shelby Lee Adams, and got the inspiration for this song, especially from ‘Juke Joint’.”

At the end of the song, Lu introduced the band, saying of young guitarist Blake – “This is the most phenomenal addition to the band. I don’t want to embarrass him, but this is the best version of the band to date. These guys back here are just my heart and soul. It’s just a love thing.”

“I got all stressed out about the hail. My husband, Tom, is from Austin, Minnesota, and he said he’s seen lots worse than this, denting cars, etc.”

“I feel like Loretta in ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ when she just started going off and had a breakdown on stage.”

“Another thing – I played three shows in the snowstorms in Minneapolis, and the people all came out. Trust me, if I was sitting home tonight, I wouldn’t want to come out.”

The bad weather rattled most everyone that night.

8. Steal Your Love – Blake is amazing on this innovative new version of the song. “See what I mean ? I just stand back there all aghast.”

9. Hot Blood – “This is a really old song that we re-worked.”

10. Sweet Side

11. Convince Me

12. Blessed

13. Essence – A lady in the audience yelled out “Lucinda, you’re the best songwriter ever!” Lu replied “Thank you, Bob Dylan’s pretty good.”

Then a guy yelled out “Dubb says ‘hi’!” Lu replied “That’s the guy I was raising hell with that night. Dubb and Bo Ramsey would drive down; and BB Morrison – I think he might be here tonight, is a great songwriter.”

14. Come On

15. Awakening – “Apparently on May 21st the world is supposed to end – the apocalypse. We’ll be in Chicago that night. Jim Morrison is going to come back and join us on stage.”

“Glenn Beck is going to burst into flames.”

“Jesus is going to return and punish Glenn Beck and all those other people.”

“Glenn Beck is now saying not ‘What would Jesus do?’, but ‘What would Jesus take from the rich?’”

“I guess that means we have Jesus on our side.”

“Something’s gotta give. Something’s gotta change.”

16. Atonement

17. Righteously – “Oh yeah, I know what I was going to say. When it was raining earlier, and the sun was shining through, when I was growing up the saying for that was ‘The Devil’s beating his wife with a frying pan’.

18. Changed The Locks – “I especially want to say thanks for digging in your pockets during these hard times, and coming out and supporting live music. This is one of my favorite venues to play in.”

19. Honey Bee

Encore: (I had to go stand outside the theater at this time, to do my Lost Highway street team duty of handing out Blessed stickers as attendees left the venue; this is what I heard from outside.)

20. Hard Time Killing Floor Blues

21. Joy

Sorry to hear about your car. Glad you made it back safely. That storm was crazy.

A hail storm pummeled my car 2 years ago before Lucinda’s Columbia Missouri show. Did about 5 grand worth of damage. I didn’t get to go, but I did get OKC tickets for the next night. haha
Lucinda brings the storms apparently.

Sounds like it was a ROLLING THUNDER Revue — thanks to all for the commentary.
[“hail, hail rock’n’roll”]

Fine job, West Words: I think it’s Dub Cornet, and “BB Morrison” is actually R. B. Morris, a fine bard and writer-in-res. at UT Knoxville, though I’m not sure he was at the show after all. Have seen him on stage fairly recently at the Down Home in Johnson City and 3rd & Lindsley of Nashville, the latter with Scott Miller.

About the only omission I can come up with is what Lu said right before she introduced the band: “are we still Buick 6?” Then she slowly rotated on tiptoe in a vaguely counterclockwise direction and seemed to get ambiguous answers from the 3 guys, concluding “OK, so much for that.” I gather despite Butch’s t-shirt of the previous night, they are not billing themselves as Buick 6 any longer. My row mate tntracy was sporting a “Love Band” t-shirt that evening, so perhaps they can revert to that moniker.

Suburban Atlanta or bust. . .