Audio By Carbonatix
Lucero
Outdoor Stage
4:30 p.m.
No band could have opened the DOMAXXII outdoor stage showcase better than Memphis’ alt-country act, Lucero.It was hot as blazes, and the first thing out of lead singer Ben Nichols’ mouth was that playing this show was “like playing a show on a frying pan.”
Yeah, it was.
Despite the lack of shade, there were still plenty of people in the audience
to laugh along at Nichols’ heat-centered banner, which would continue
for the remainder of the afternoon.
Nichol’s voice
indeed proved to be the centerpiece for this band. He sounded like he’s smoked a thousand too many cigarettes, drank a
thousand too many whiskeys, and been to about a thousand too many
parties.
And that’s exactly what the Lucero show turned into–a huge
party.
The set started with a distorted guitar
strum that Nichols said “sounds like angels singing.” Its tone was full
and almost as gritty as his voice when the band ran through the first three
up-tempo numbers. Dancing in the audience ensued almost immediately,
which proves that Lucero has a different breed of fans.
Die-hard
doesn’t seem to cut it. Who else would show up on the hottest day of
the year and belt out the lyrics to every song on the setlist–which,
turns out, doesn’t exist.
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“We never make a setlist,” said the shirtless bass player, John Stubblefield, in a thick country drawl after the show.
The proof was at the concert’s halfway mark when the band decided to finish
the show by only playing requests, which turned into a bartering system
between the audience and the band–a beer for a song.
The
first request was “Sweet Little Thing,” from their album Tennessee,
followed by another classic, “Tears Don’t Matter Much.”
Just
before they closed out the set with the ultimate party-ender, “Drink
Til We’re Gone,” a guy in the audience shouted another request for
“Sweet Little Thing.”
Nichols replied, “We just played that two songs ago. Heat stroke has finally set in.”
