Concert Review: Reverend Horton Heat at the Crossroads

BY SAMMY LOREN

To steal a concept from a writer I like, we all have bands who haunt us. Groups whose names we know and whose reputations we respect but whose music we’ve never really heard. This described my relationship to Reverend Horton Heat before the band’s concert last Friday at the Crossroads KC at Grinders. So when the occasion arose to review them at the Pitch Block Party – and play some musical catch up – I jumped at the opportunity.

What’s intriguing about the Reverend Horton Heat is how the group’s repertoire wrestles with conflicting musical traditions: rockabilly, surf, country, jazz, and punk. When ingested individually, they constitute such distinct impulses. Yet when handed to this particular Dallas-based psychobilly trio, they distill into something wholly different and wholly American, like Tex-Mex or Chinese food. Toss in the Betty Page lookalikes who frequent the shows, and the group becomes epic.