Concert Review: Southern Culture on the Skids at the Granada

Saturday was kind of a downhome sort of day at the Spacek household. We’d made homemade chili and cornbread and then listened to A Prairie Home Companion while we canned homemade pickled peppers. What other way do you end an evening like that but by going to see some Southern Culture on the Skids?

Evidently, this was a popular thought, as the Granada was way more packed than I thought it would be. I love SCoTS, but I always have this fear, because shows at the Granada can look a little sparse, since it’s such a fucking cavern. No worries Saturday night, though. The place was filled with a diverse crowd. I saw everything from what looked like a crowd of cougars out on the prowl, young kids with X’s on their hands, to not one, but two gentlemen in overalls (one of whom was built like Uncle Jesse from The Dukes of Hazzard, sporting a goatee and a porkpie, dancing with a heavily tattoo’d young lady a third his age). Like I said: diverse.

SCoTS opened with “Voodoo Cadillac,” the first of many tunes off of Dirt Track Date they’d play over the course of their nearly two-hour(!) set. By the end of the show, thy’d have played nearly half the album, including “Whole Lotta Things,” “Soul City,” and “Camel Walk,” which had many of the women in the audience dancing up on stage. Those not on-stage were dancing in the audience. I’ve not seen an audience dance like that at a rock ‘n’ roll show since — actually, I’ve never seen an audience dance like that at a rock show.

Rick Miller made it look like ripping out surf licks and blues riffs took no effort whatsoever, while Mary Huff played the bass and bopped from side to side like a trailer park queen holding court. For as little banter as they had with the audience, limiting it mainly to a few words before each song, the audience couldn’t get enough. The swampy rockabilly purveyed by SCoTS is the sort of thing that lends itself to getting lit and dancing like a fool, and the folks in the crowd were more than happy to oblige.

By the time the band ended with a gospel punk version of the Louvin Brothers’ “Atomic Power,” the audience was moving just as enthusiastically as they had when the band started, and still hungry for more.