How embarassingly fanboyish I am!

Gob Iron (above) Jay Farrar (below)

Oh man. I went last night to see my rock idol, Jay Farrar (of Son Volt fame) play a solo set and then play with his side project Gob Iron (Brit slang for harmonica) at Slim's. Brilliant.

First of all, I've gotta say Hans and I had sucky luck at first- finding the place was difficult and then I thought I lost my wallet, but I didn't. Then the girl in front of me at the box office turned around and gave me a free ticket and said she won 2 tickets online and didn't need the other one. FREE. My luck had changed.

Jay played 4 or 5 songs from the upcoming (can't wait!) Son Volt album just on the acoustic guitar. Man, the lyrics are so visual and uniquely American and tragic and my brain was teleported to a far off place in my inner mind! Even with just those stripped down skeletal songs, Hans, who is not a Farrar fan, seemed affected by them. Either Hans was bored or blown away because his jaw had dropped.

That would've been good enough by itself, but guitarist/lapsteelist Mark Spencer came out and backed Jay up with a telecaster and it was just amazing. I'm not sure I've seen that many virtuosic performances of that level up close and personal. Spencer was out of this world and at times, it didn't even sound like a guitar. If I had a choice between some first-chair violinist slinging a Stradivarius and Mark Spencer, I'd choose Mark Spencer. Heck, I'd choose Spencer with his hands tied behind his back, he sounds so amazing. And you would too!

Gob Iron is a side project of Jay Farrar and Anders Parker (of Varnaline fame). They have reworked traditional folk songs with altered lyrics/melodies on their new album. They came on and played a great short set- basically played through the new album. The three guys traded between drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, and lapsteel. Their encore was just sort of a jam session thing where they played covers and reworked each others' solo stuff. The encore was kind of sucky except that I love Jay's electric guitar solos and you don't get to see that that much in Son Volt.

But holy crap, what a good show!

The guys traded off on this guitar(above), belonging to Anders Parker. It's a costom made telecaster made out of pieces of his mom's barn. Click here to see more beauty.