The Unwieldies at the Las Vegas Book Festival at the 5th Street School, Saturday Oct 23, 3021

 

Of course, I have ranted'n'raved about Las Vegas' favorite acoustic act, The Unwieldies, innumerable times on this here blog and it was great to have a chance to finally see them live again - the first time since the inception of the pandemic! (Really, folks, mask up'n'vax up so we can get past this plague already!)

While most of the songs performed today were from their excellent CD's, I believe there were a couple of new tunes about love'n'loss amongst covers like "Billy Jean", Elvis Costello's heartfelt song about aging and Alzheimer's, "Veronica", and Leonard Cohen's lovely "Everybody Knows" with its appropo line "everybody knows the plague is coming", and a "song about death but with a happy ending" (as Rob introduced it), The Pine Hill Haints' "Never Gonna Die". 

Original highlights included their harmony driven "It's Not Me, It's You", "The Have and Have Nots", "Star Struck", and plenty more. Nicely clever arrangements abound, Danielle's voice is always a sweet pleasure and she compliments Rob's more raw'n'earthy vocalizing, while Richard's dobro and Jack's violin add extra layers of melodic goodness.

Hopefully, we're going to soon get to a point where we can back to some kind of normalcy and we can catch quality live acts like this on a regular basis again. Thanks to the Unwieldies for getting out there again!