The Desert Rose Band - 05/29/2010 - McNear’s Mystic Theatre, Petaluma, CA
 
Support Band: -
Venue Capacity: 550
 
Setlist:

01. She Don't Love Nobody
02. Love Reunited
03. He's Back and I'm Blue
04. Leave This Town
05. Time Between
06. For the Rich man
07. Summer Wind
08. Once More
09. Start All Over Again
10. Hello Trouble
11. Together Again
12. Ashes of Love
13. If It Be Your Will
14. In Another Lifetime
15. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
16. I Still Believe In You
17. One Step Forward
18. Last Thing On My Mind
19. Sin City
20. Wait A Minute
21. Will This Be The Day
22. Price I Pay
 
Pictures:
 
Review:

By Richard Bammer / The Reporter

From the first song to the last, from "She Don't Love Nobody" to "Price I Pay," seeing and hearing The Desert Rose Band in concert Saturday was like a seminar in the history of American country-rock.

In a nearly two-hour show at the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma, the Los Angeles-based group, led by the multitalented Chris Hillman, touched on tunes from early and middle chapters of The Byrds, one from The Flying Burrito Brothers, all bands Hillman was part of in the mid- and late 1960s. DRB, which Hillman co-founded with guitarist and singer Herb Pedersen in 1986, also performed more than a half-dozen of its chart-topping hits in what was among, probably, its final performances, Hillman told The Reporter two weeks ago.

The first two groups, especially, were the foundations of what various 1970s bands, including The Eagles, would build upon and the media would label country-rock, a term Hillman dislikes and considers a misnomer. He simply considers it traditional American music, perhaps based in bluegrass -- the Southern string-band music of bluesy harmonies, fast tempos and high-pitched vocals -- played on electric instruments, the sound routed through an amplifier.

The DRB hits, among them "He's Back and I'm Blue" and "Summer Wind," were expected and welcomed. The question was what tunes would Hillman extract from his extensive catalog with The Byrds, his collaborations with troubled but gifted singer-songwriter Gram Parsons in The Byrds and The Flying Burrito

Brothers? He did not disappoint. They included "Time Between" from "Younger Than Yesterday" (1967) and "You Ain't Going Nowhere," a Bob Dylan-penned number from "Sweetheart of the Rodeo," the celebrated 1968 album that many critics consider the genesis of country-rock.

On "You Ain't Going Nowhere," Hillman, 65, a congenial man with a shock of curly gray hair, rightly noted that the memorable chorus, supported ably by the high, emotive twangs of pedal steel player Jay Dee Maness, was worthy of a sing-along. Sure enough, prompted, the 300-strong crowd responded happily, singing, "Whoo-ee! Ride me high/Tomorrow's the day my bride's gonna come/Oh, oh, are we gonna fly/Down in my easy chair."

A concert highlight with a loping beat, it is the kind of song that evokes nostalgia, perhaps for a never-ending Woodstock that can only be dreamed of. The anchor song on "Sweetheart," it helped to change not only country music but it also changed the course of rock 'n' roll, with Maness' pedal steel replacing Roger McGuinn's 12-string guitar.

Still, the show largely paid homage to the DRB songbook, Hillman's showcase of songcraft for nearly a decade. "One Step Forward," a rollicking, danceable tune, told a tale of a relationship that just cannot find its proper emotional footing; "Summer Wind" a story about the effect of a parents' separation on a child; and "Hello, Trouble," the funny Eddie McDuff and Orville Couch tune about a man, who seeing trouble walking down the street, would rather have trouble in his life than never know love at all.

Hillman and his pals -- including the eminently talented picker John Jorgenson on guitars and vocals and Bill Bryson on bass -- also covered Johnny and Jack's "Ashes of Love" and an Osborne Brothers tune.

In liner notes to the DRB's greatest hits collection, "A Dozen Roses," Robert K. Oerman wrote of the band members: "They picked up country's past and gave it a future."

And we're still hearing it today, on regular FM and satellite radio, on discs and in downloads. In Hillman's hands, sophisticated and masterfully played, it is music with integrity and, pleasurably, deeply plumbed American roots.

 

Source: http://www.thereporter.com/entertainment/ci_15209201