An evening with Mom, Dad and Old Crow Medicine Show

Old Crow Medicine Show
Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre, Cobb County, Ga.
May 4, 2007

The first time I saw Old Crow Medicine Show, they were playing under a large, white tent at Merlefest, and the whole crowd -- jammed into the tent and spilling far outside -- was on its feet.

The second time I saw Old Crow Medicine Show, I was seated next to my 60-something parents in a small amphitheater half-filled with pink-wine sipping season-ticket holders.

Both times I saw Old Crow Medicine Show, they rocked.

During the Merlefest tent show, the band clearly was feeding off the crowd's energy, but they had to draw from the fires within a little more, I'd imagine, earlier this month in suburban Atlanta. Whose idea it was to book this twang-tastic, old-timey-with-an-edge quintet at this venue, I don't know. The seating nearest the stage was white-linen topped corporate tables, accomodating Ladies In Pantsuits who with their husbands munched shrimp cocktail and hugged other Ladies In Pantsuits as they filled neighboring tables before the show began. Farther back I sat with Mom and Dad in seats, set in rows generously spaced to accomodate tray tables so that the non-corporate-tabled might enjoy their shrimp cocktail, too. Behind us was a steeply sloped but well-kept lawn spread with blankets and the Birkenstock-clad.

The amphitheater -- just a few years old, so not one of my haunts when I grew up in Cobb County 800 years ago -- seems perfect for most of its summer lineup, which includes Kevin Eubanks, Grand Funk Railroad, Ricky Skaggs, some Atlanta Symphony shows, Loverboy (!) and The Manhattan Transfer. But could it withstand the frenzy-inducing licks from the lovable scamps of OCMS? As I watched a mostly uninitiated crowd filter in, I wondered.

I also wondered how Mom and Dad, fans of Celine Dion and The Kingston Trio, respectively, would react. We'd last attended a live performance together maybe sometime in the early 1990s, and I'm pretty sure it was "Cats."

If before taking the stage OCMS sensed this crowd was a little older and less twang-accustomed than their usual, they didn't tone anything down in response. They started out with the jangly "Big Time in the Jungle" and only ramped it up from there.

The ever-escalating energy level didn't bring the crowd to its feet -- it just wasn't that kind of crowd -- but I definitely observed some of its members putting down the pink wine and paying attention. How could you not drop your jaw a bit when Ketch Secor, in the show's first four songs, played hell out of three instruments (guitar, fiddle and harmonica) and sang? Not much later, he rocked out on the banjo. Other band members were similarly versatile -- in fact, I'm not sure I can think of another band with so much multi-instrument talent.

The show dipped generously into the band's two-CD (if you don't count the live one) repertoire, and there were plenty of delicious covers, too, including "Katy Dear," "Are You From Dixie" and Holly Golightly's "Mother Earth."

Halfway through the show, the boys took a 15-minute break -- a little strange for a traditional music (or "Pop/Rock," according to the venue's program) show, but you could hardly fault them, what with the pace of their playing.

And that pace -- the delicious, frenzied, foot-stomping pace that's what we all love about OCMS -- made me spend most of the show wishing I had gotten lawn tickets. Because try not to dance around to OCMS, try it. I can hardly manage it when I'm listening to a recording of them, let alone a live show. It's the kind of music that's made for getting people on their feet, but it was in a venue made for sitting and clapping politely. The lawn folks, god bless 'em, were doing it right. But, lest I get the stink-eye from the folks behind me or even my own parents sitting beside me, I had to sit there and bear it. All I could do was tap my feet as hard as I could, and boy did I.

But still, despite the venue-artist mismatch, Old Crow Medicine Show was a great time -- and the crowd showed their appreciation at last with a standing ovation at the end of the show and again after an encore.

Mom and Dad liked it, too. Even better than "Cats," I think.