Old Crow Medicine Show

Music Box - September 5, 2006

Live Review by Mark McConville

Old Crow Medicine Show is an anomaly.  Singing songs that feel like they are directly from the mountains and also directly from 1928, OCMS somehow bring a distinct and fresh perspective to bluegrass.  Their newest record, Big Iron World, is packed with this take on old time music.  The record is solid, as is their entire catalog.

That feel ends there.  Live, Old Crow Medicine Show seem to be doing nothing more than a well-rehearsed school recital, which is constantly coming off the rails.  Pray that they just had a bad night.  Wracked with sound problems, string breakage, and incomprehensible banter, Old Crow live was a disappointment.  As soon as any momentum would build, something would happen and the momentum would collapse.  Sometimes it was self-inflicted (taking an intermission) and sometimes it was the venue (wretched sound).  The odds were stacked against them.  As with any band that has just released a new record, there’s an art to planning out where to place new songs amongst the nuggets of crowd favorite gold.  Few bands are able to blend new material and what the crowd wants, and OCMS is not one of those bands.  The audience was lost as often as they screamed for more.  Couple with that the fact that the Henry Ford Music Box air conditioning was out, add  all the aforementioned and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

When OCMS was able to get going, they showed flashes of greatness.  Highlights included “Big Time in the Jungle” and “Wagon Wheel” from their self-titled CD, “Tear It Down” and a cover of “Good Hearted Woman,” which closed their encore.  Willie Watson nearly stole the show with his high tenor voice.  Amazing fiddle playing from Ketch Secor and solid bass playing from Morgan Jahnig laid a great foundation, but with the sound problems, the banjo players may as well have stayed home.  When Mr. Secor announced the band as members of the Big Blue Wrecking Crew—ending with Fernando Valenzuela and Tommy Lasorda—the crowd roared with laughter.  It’s too bad that one of their best and freshest moments had little to do with the music and everything to do with the Los Angeles Dodgers.