Photo Credit: Tuan Lee
The Bottle Rockets’ 1993 eponymous debut album and its follow up The Brooklyn Side served notice that the Festus, Mo., shit-kicking storytellers had set their sights on a career. Since then they have played Milwaukee many times. Friday’s show at Shank Hall found them celebrating the deluxe reissue of both those albums.
Frontman Brian Henneman’s songs blend John Prine’s lyrical observation while the band has no problem honoring Lynyrd Skynyrd’s sonic punch. At this show, Henneman added a ton of Rickenbacker jangle to the mix. Over the years these guys have matured—well, that may not be the right word—into a great stage act that connects with listeners. “Gravity Fails” remains as gut wrenching as ever but it was a re-arrangement of “Welfare Music” that stood out. Dynamically rising and falling, Henneman and John Horton’s guitar weaving sounded pleasingly Allman-esque at times.
It is not often the opening act also backs the headliners, but after a short break The Bottle Rockets returned as Marshall Crenshaw’s band. Crenshaw began his career playing John Lennon in Beatlemania and also portrayed Buddy Holly onscreen, but he made his name with an album chock-full of pure pop gems on his 1982 debut. Since then his albums have veered wonderfully to include roots-inspired music from R&B to jazzy instrumentals—no surprise considering his musical and pop cultural scholarship.
The Bottle Rockets proved up to the challenge of backing him, providing full arrangements behind Crenshaw’s slap-back echoed vocals. On this cold night, Crenshaw warmed up the near-capacity audience with glances back to his early catalog, including “Cynical Girl,” “Whenever You’re On My Mind,” “There She Goes Again” and “Mary Anne.” The band offered a luxury of sounds with Henneman picking a 12-string electric guitar and Horton tripling on guitar, six-string bass and lap steel. Crenshaw was left to focus on his vocal performance as well as set his guitar solos aflight with the band’s support.
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Crenshaw balanced his more sophisticated later tunes with covers of Richard Thompson and birthday boy Elvis Presley before encoring with “Someday, Someway,” the tune that put him on the map more than three decades ago.
