John Doe Folk Trio at Shank Hall

by

The John Doe Folk Trio wrapped up their tour Sunday night with a concert at Shank Hall. The X bassist left his four-string at home in favor of an acoustic guitar, touring on his recent album Fables inaA Foreign Land, a concept record set in the 1890s. 

Backed by Kevin Smith on upright bass and Conrad Choucroun on drums, Doe glanced backward with new arrangements of tunes from X (“Burning House of Love,” “4th of July” and “The New World”) and that band’s side project, The Knitters. 

From Fables, Doe stretched time with quirky character sketches in “El Romance-o,” “The Cowboy And The Hot Air Balloon,” as well as collaborations with Garbage and Texas legend Terry Allen. He also generously threw in covers of Bob Dylan’s “I Dreamed of St. Augustine,” Midnight Cowboy theme “Everybody’s Talkin’” and slowed things way down with The Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes For You.”

Liv Mueller opened the show with a hybrid sound that manages to deconstruct country, gothic folk and looping technology to conjure a genre that just might have one artist at this point. With the slightest imagination, her dramatic vocals and twangy, reverbed guitar suggest miniature soundtracks.