Louden Wainwright III can still make you think. What you thought about if you attended his October 12 show at The Moore is up to you…
If you knew a bit about Wainwright’s 60s era background, his journeyman musical development with roots in the folk/singer-songwriter tradition, you’d get a sense of time applying itself to his songs, melodies, and messages. Wainwright’s messages were varied and quirky, balancing dark material with the light hearted, which was expected, but also poignant and personal, which was unexpected and very entertaining. If you knew nothing of his background, the new listener was treated to fifteen well written and performed songs with topics ranging from aging and family to politics and womanizing.
Wainwright’s vocals had a rough-sounding texture at first, and then smoothed out as the show went on. He alternated between picking and strumming his guitar for given songs (to good effect), even giving a cappella vocals a turn with a sensitive chant-like song that instantly intensified the energy on stage and sharpened the focus of the crowd.
Wainwright doesn’t take himself too seriously though, so he moved ahead with a bit of self-revelatory comedy. Songs written about womanizing when he was twenty-five have a slightly different meaning now that he’s sixty-two. He also plugged his newest album which will be remakes of his old “hits,” or rather, songs he’d really like to record again. Wainwright did not play his novelty hit “Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road).”
Toward the end of the show and with some songs reinforcing Wainwright’s reputation as a grumbly curmudgeon, he busted out the ukulele and did a number about how in just playing the instrument, “Ya gotta be happy!” He even took some requests (White Winos) and finished strong with a commentary on how he’d like to look forward to enjoying President’s Day again, but may have to wait until after the election for that . . . . Wainwright did not come back for an encore, though the crowd seemed to desire this with lusty, lengthy applause.
Leo Kottke followed Wainwright with a wonderful set of his finger-style guitar instrumentals, ruminations, and gritty, almost Tom Waits-like vocals. Especially enchanting was the beautiful new song “Ants,”—played in a very clean almost classical style on six-string—that he described as helping him move forward from those troubling metaphors he’s used in the past to name his instrumental tunes. Kottke ended the night by encoring with a rousing and highly appreciated version of “Vaseline Machine Gun.”
