When Entering the iconic SF Fillmore, you are immersed in the 60’s & 70’s rock n roll scene, familiar whether you were there or not. Technicolor posters swirled with psychedelic, lettering illegible to sober eyes, line the walls from floor to ceiling. Bill Graham’s spirit awaits guests at the top landing of the stairs with a barrel of shiny red apples — for free of course. Bill created the perfect container for musical adventurers.
As a long time admirer, I’ve experienced different tours and shows from Cass McCombs from the 90’s onward. Tonight was a delightful party for long-term fans. The magisterial ultra violet chandeliers illuminated a diverse crowd. The show wasn’t quite sold out, but the house was full and at attention. These fans are earnest and fully committed. A hometown Bay Area hero is taking over the dusky Fillmore ballroom, pulling the wires all night.
Sam Evian supported. This Brooklyn based fresh-faced kid who engineered Tip of the Sphere, Cass’s latest, brought reflections of a younger Cass to the stage. Don’t get me wrong, Evian has his own thing, but it was uncanny — the mop hair and plainspoken melodies recalled the early building of a long lasting career. A sultry curly haired blonde sang slight backing vocals, while the frenetic guitarist danced and jerked at his own pace apart from the band. Sam was straightforward and got the job done. The last song played upped the ante from a more mellow set and gave way to Cass’s playground for the night.
The band came on with a fraternal sensibility. A projection of lights from a previous tour reworked as a sort of broken albino Light-Bright™ flickered on and off behind the drums riser. Cass entered to a mass of fawning fan girls and guys. In a crisp and cuffed white button-down, tucked in over a Meat Puppets tee, and what looked to be silver tab jeans and skate shoes, he could be mistaken for a caterer’s assistant who quit mid gig for a battle of the bands try out if it wasn’t all wasn’t so apparently laundered and speckless
Dan Horne (bass), Otto Hauser (drums) and Frank LoCrasto (piano, organ, and more) formed the solid bones of the band, augmented by a range of guests throughout the night. Another hometown here, Joel Robinow of Oakland’s “Once and Future Band” featured on keys for a few songs, looking like a cornered Jimmy Buffet beneath a looming speaker. He played amazingly.
The 17 song set started brightly with Tip of the Sphere’s first single “Sleeping Volcanoes,” a tune warning of society’s fragilities and the inevitable outcomes of our collective laziness as a whole. Cass Crooned “Help me Armageddon” repeatedly as fans nodded forward.
The set jangled on with “The Great Pixley Train Robbery,” a long-winded tale that worth following lyrically, but also rewarding in its modern road trip vibes.
The band led us next into Mangy Love’s “Bum Bum Bum,” once played on the Ellen DeGeneres Show– another bleak warning of where our carelessness as a society has led us. Cass conjures this imagery effortlessly delivering it with detached engagement. Thank goodness for the palatable smooth grooves carried along by adorable Bongo Sidibe’s traditional West African drumming this one and a few others.
Next he dropped “Morning Star,” a sensual tune reeking of infidelity.
Sam Evian came back out on Sax, joining the fraternal order for the next tune from Mangy “Laughter is the Best Medicine.” Far out reggae swells carried Cass’ poetry perfectly, his vocals extra creamy.
4th track off of …Sphere, “Absentee,” followed, a meandering piano ditty wah wahing about the Irish potato famine.
Tablas, low and meditative, stilled the crowd, creating space for “Real Life” a Crosby-esque number from …Sphere communing with open ended questions, dreamily heading into clear falsetto exhibiting Cass’s beautiful ranges.
Old school favorite “County Line” kept it mellow while up-fronters shushed and hushed rankling bar talkers in the back. Because, wtf — this track is his sleepily nostalgic crowning perfection.
A Sabbath like crash rousted the crowd. It was the masturbatory track “American Canyon Sutra” off …Sphere that drones on about bullshitty people living, working, dying all at once in this plastic chazerai reality Americans idly choose: Walmart and garbage for everyone.
The commanding gong crashed and reverberated Cass’s voice into shadows. Beat poems and cheap drum machines. More than a tolerable listen, and notably strong live.
The title track from Big Wheel was next, chugalugging mid-set, catching back the crowd.
Once caught, he slid the folks back to the new record with Sam Evian back on swanky and slithering sax for “Tying Up Loose Ends”.
The next two came from Mangy: “In a Chinese Alley,” cocaine smooth with a forward facing Joe Jackson vibration, and “Cry” lively jaunty disco.
The most Cass uttered directly to the crowd all evening was before the next one to let the people know he was gonna take them “Way back, way way back…” to 2004’s Ep of the same name, “Not the Way.” After years of writing and honing, this old school lullaby sounded refined and current.
Things were wrapping up, it was apparent. What better than Garcia fueled guitar hooks of “Rounder” off …Sphere to close out the fledgling Fillmore show? Jerry’s rose framed portrait in the poster room upstairs must have gleamed.
As the band jammed out of “Rounder,” thousands of bubbles flooded the stage. The crowd of Nob Hill plastic surgery victims and Berkeley Granola wing-nuts thinned, and the freak-fans stayed and looked on in delight.
They closed out …
The band was wooed back by the audience and delivered “Rancid Girl,” a punk one off from Mangy. Then “Brighter,” a Big Wheel cut, drifted above the crowd pleasantly with Lou Reed as backbone for certain.
Then they all wandered off a little while.
