I can still remember the smell of the vinyl sleeves the library used to protect the LPs. I associate that smell with Blue Rodeo, because after reading some good reviews of 1989’s Diamond Mine, I checked it out from the Hennepin County Library.
I pulled out the vinyl record from its vinyl-encased cardboard sleeve, set it a-spinning, and never got very far past the first twangy guitar strum. Too much country for me back then.
Flash forward more than 20 years, and I’m watching Blue Rodeo take the stage at St. Louis’ Twangfest, anticipating it with excitement. I’ve changed a lot in those intervening years, understanding the place of twang in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. Which means I could hear and enjoy Blue Rodeo’s set, the most straight-forward country sound on the bill of the second night of Twangfest.
While in Canada there would be thousands of people gathered, Blue Rodeo is able to play some intimate settings in the U.S. like St. Louis’ Blueberry Hill. As soon as they took the stage, they were cooking along a train track rhythm with some great jamming keyboards. On “One More Night,” they hit a rocking, grooving country rock with 50’s rock elements even as they twang up Twangfest. It’s tracks like these that helped me crossover to Blue Rodeo’s type of Country-influenced Rock.
When they began “Don’t Let the Darkness Inside Your Head” from their recent release, The Things We Left Behind, you could hear the CSNY influence, although when Anne Lindsay picked up her fiddle, there was a bit of Bob Dylan’s Desire sound, too. Then the more keys jammed, and the more Lindsay got fired up on that fiddle—jumping and diving with the sound, the more that song rocks beyond its CSNY beginnings. It’s a tremendous moment of Gospel, too, the way the song works as a prayer for someone who has really been touched by depression or other overcoming darkness. The song tries to build up someone who is convinced that they haven’t done enough, and the more the song builds, the more there’s hope.
Don’t let the darkness in your head
All the songs you meant to sing, you did
Don’t let the darkness in your head
All the love you meant to share, you shared.
