Yes I did head downtown last Thursday night during the blizzard to catch what was an unbelievable show featuring Joshua English, Ben Nichols (of Lucero), and Chuck Ragan (of Hot Water Music) at Schubas Tavern.
Because of the snow it took me 1-1/2 hours drive the 12 miles from work to home and another hour + to get downtown so I (unfortunately) missed Joshua English’s set, but everyone who saw it said he was great. His latest record Trouble None is fantastic so I’m sure that live it would have been awesome.
MP3 | Joshua English – No Ready Answer, No Ready Reply
MP3 | Ben Nichols (Lucero – The War
MP3 | Chuck Ragan – See Yourself To The Door
I (however) only walked in the door as Ben Nichols was starting his set. As anticipated, it consisted of mainly Lucero songs, but Ben and the crowd were having a great time and loving every minute of it. It was nice to hear the songs in a more intimate setting with only Ben’s whiskey-soaked voice acoustic guitar, and a pedal steel accompaniment. It was simply fantastic.
Then came Chuck Ragan. He played songs from his assorted 7 inch records and from hsi full-length Feast Or Famine. It was amazing. Chuck was accompanied by fiddler Jon Gaunt from Whiskey and Co. (who Ben embarrassingly called Whiskeytown) on a number of songs in addition to his own gruff voice and snappy harmonica playing. Chuck also managed to play a few Hot Water Music songs (“God Deciding” and “Old Rules”) as well as “Bleeder” out of the Alkaline Trio’s catalog.
Despite missing Joshua English and spending over four hours in the car that evening, it was a great show that I’m glad I didn’t bail out on.
I’m still jealous. This is by far one of the best pictures from the show!
Schubas and House Of Blues are my most favorite music spots in Chicago. Can you please keep posting regular concert updates of these two venues.