Co-headlining tours are a dime a dozen (give or take thousands of dollars in additional fees). But actual collaboration on the road is another factor, with most bands also protecting their brands for much of their nighttime events to truly share someone else’s vision. In a joint road show, we value the moments when the lead singer of one band joins the other for an encore or two. How accurate are merged identities? This is something that happens in Altman or Kieslowski films, but rock ‘n’ roll shows it, not so much.
Dawes and Lucius did an unusual thing, then, by using the buddy system for a tour that ended on Sunday with a about-hometown present at Pappy + Harriet’s, in the hills above and beyond Palm Springs. While elaborate advance notifications of how things would play out didn’t hurt, the Tag Crew Tour moniker was a good indication that this might not be your two-band “let’s alternate headlining status” kind of bill, but that the 2 the artists can seek glory in the light humility of a much-shared space for more than three hours. If you are a fan of both artists, you must appreciate the way these artists complement each other. But if you already recognize each of them as the best examples of how strong the virtues of old rock can continue to be in the 2020s, then this was a perfect marriage, or at least the best elements of excessive desert.
One of the big side effects of a setup like this is the prospect of highlighting cover songs more than a band might otherwise dare, as their respective audiences are already prepared to not receive something like a greatest hits classic. -newest-songs present. The joint set at Pappy + Harriet’s included five great ones, starting with opener “Shine On You Loopy Diamond,” which the two Lucius girls used to sing every night, in a pre-pandemic period, featuring backing vocals for Roger Water on time. Many people who loved that tour would have more doubts now about buying tickets to a Waters show… so what a pleasure to have another chance to hear his vocals on the exclusive Pink Floyd number featuring Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith. because the officiant. Lucius also performed his long-running version of Grateful Life’s “Uncle John’s Band,” heavily rearranged in all melodic methods to create an interesting space for female harmonies, finding Goldsmith to be a great and complementary Deadhead as he traded lead guitar chords with the slide expert. Trevor Menear.
For his part, Goldsmith, a self-acknowledged Warren Zevon freak, seemed to be the driving force behind “Desperados Beneath the Eaves,” which always seems acceptable to play in Southern California, even when, in this Valley-adjacent setting, Yucca , it should have been tempting to replace the final cries of “Look away, down Gower Avenue” with “Look away, down the 62 Freeway.” (You can see a faint glimpse of Joshua wood behind the tour bus parked behind Pappy’s stage, and the people look a lot more like “crucified thieves” than the palm wood Zevon was referring to, don’t they? ) Goldsmith also introduced Joni Mitchell’s “Come In From the Chilly,” a song he humbly bragged about nervously starting to play like its creator on his first night at a private Joni Jam. The closing “With a Little Assist From My Buddies” was more Joe Cocker’s soulful style, not Ringo’s energetic, slightly melancholic original. Almost as good as Goldsmith was at approximating a prettier version of Cocker’s howl, you wouldn’t want to hear answers from him without Lucius forming a two-woman chorus to ask “Do you want someone?” questions.
Even with the show booked and packed with so many historical outside options, a working time of 2 hours and 50 minutes (with a 20 minute intermission in the middle) still allowed enough time to amplify two of the best authentic catalogs in modern rock, with 10 songs from Lucius and eight from Goldsmith’s pen. As long as you could stay with the truth that this was a night where you weren’t going to get even a little bit of “A Little Bit of Everything” (Dawes’ nine studio albums, versus Lucius’ four, required some tougher decisions about what to get in or come out, presumably), this would be a show that would surpass even the best live shows you might have experienced with one artist or another in the past.
Lucius and Dawes
Chris Willman/Selection
The question “Why don’t other bands pair up this way?” is legitimate, but full and crucial transparency implies the recognition that there will be no one else in music so naturally adaptable to this dual format on Lucius. Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig join a band with that name, but they also go by the nickname even when they collaborate on other people’s projects – and as much of the music world already knows, they do a lot of that. They are true RBI queens, to put it in baseball terms, offering a magical secret sauce with information on everyone from Brandi Carlile to Harry Styles to the Killers to Warfare on Medication. The Lucius girls are, in some ways, the modern equivalent of the singer featured in “20 Toes From Stardom,” as well as being good singers and songwriters in their own right — in fact, almost as good at their position as vocalists as anyone they already anchored behind. In the history of pop, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who continually moved back and forth between utility players and hitters with as much ease as Wolfe and Laessig. This Tag Crew Tour, as quick as it was, gave them the ultimate alternative to shine in each female lead and supporting actress roles over the course of one night.
Lúcio at Pappy & Harriet’s
Chris Willman/Selection
Goldsmith, for his part, also has a reputation for “playing well with others,” stretching from his cohort role in Dylan’s “New Basement Tapes” recovery project a decade ago to his participation in Joni’s handful. Public jams (not to mention boosting wife Mandy Moore’s musical efforts). Even though he doesn’t do a lot of session work, he would also be one of the guitarists you’d want to solo on your album if he did. So, in the immortal words of Marisa Tomei: “You mix it up.” There was also a twin side to this setup, as Laessig and Wolfe are sort of fake sisters who only seem to have blood harmony, while Goldsmith and his drummer brother Griffin can declare the truth. Only once did the four line up at the front of the stage to sing in unison, as the two-part harmony of Lucius’s gentle “Two of Us on the Run” became a four-part harmony as soon as both Goldsmiths worried. But the strengths of the quartet style were implicit in the mix, even as Griffin remained behind his pack.
The remainder of the band largely consisted of players who had recently been called up to Dawes, as the band had gone through some changes, losing some of its historic lineup. There was no sense of lack of continuity, though, in this ensemble playing some of Dawes’s more complicated traditional material, as if they had all been a unit for years, especially on a frenetic, deliciously bass-driven pop piece. psycho-reggae like “Image of a Man”. Instrumental fireworks aren’t always essential to Lucius’ material, though Menear’s slide guitar was a welcome addition to last year’s one-off single, “Stranger Hazard.” Some of Lucius’ best songs are some of his most striking, especially “Tempest” and “Lady,” the latter of which had a stripped-back acoustic treatment, without much to distract from some of the dramatically impressive songs of the last 10 years.
Although Goldsmith is animated during his guitar solos, Wolfe won honors for being the most nervous on stage at Pappy + Harriet’s. Was it the end-of-tour energy or the energy of trying to avoid freezing? Maybe a combination of both, but you couldn’t blame anyone on stage for instinctively doing what was necessary to heat things up. The problems were ice cream in the extreme desert, as temperatures dropped into the mid to low 40s, even before the sun went down, about 45 minutes into the first set. “It’s 80!” Wolfe insisted at the start of the show, expressing a fantasy of more palatable performance conditions. Otherwise, they didn’t worry much about the mood, other than Goldsmith performing “Come In From the Cold” as “appropriately, for a night like this.” The gang was waiting, anyway, with photos of spectators revealing more heads in ski caps than not. It was the end of a tour of just 10 cities (though witnessed by even more via a Veeps live broadcast out of Colorado) that could have traversed even more territory and indicated that a large portion of Angelenos had traveled abroad. If they generate that much heat in a cold snap, it would be worth doing an experiment to find out if they can feel cold during a heat wave in Los Angeles. We’d welcome any excuse, really, for a reprise of this excellent, short-lived tour.
Set listing:
Shine On You Loopy Diamond Elements I-IV (Pink Floyd cover)
It is available in Waves (Dawes range)
Storm (Lucius track)
Go Residence (Lucius track)
Hearth Away (Dawes track)
Dusty Trails (Lucius track)
Me Particularly (Dawes track)
Stranger Hazard (Lucius track)
Desperados Beneath the Eaves (hood by Warren Zevon)
When My Time Comes (Dawes track)
Genevieve (Lucius track)
Coime In From the Chilly (hood by Joni Mitchell)
Mad Love (Lucius track)
Million Dollar Bill (Center Brother track)
Lady (Lucius track)
Can’t Guess About It Now (Dawes Track)
Lucy (Lucius track)
Image of a Man (Dawes strip)
Uncle John’s Band (Grateful Dead cover)
Higher Look Again (Lucius track)
All Your Favorite Bands (Dawes Track)
Two of Us on the Run (Lucius track)
With a little help from my friends (Beatles cover)