Concert Review -- Mark Olson and Gary Louris

Mark Olson and Gary Louris are the founding members of The Jayhawks. After three albums, Olson left the band. Louris has kept the band going, and after a few albums where the band moved away from its Americana roots toward pop/rock, its most recent album, Rainy Day Music, is a return to the style of the early Jayhawks. In the meantime, Olson has played with a group known as Mark Olson and the Creekdippers, which includes his wife (Victoria Williams) and Mike Russell (who played with Louris and Olson last night).

The concert was very good, it was decent, and it was painfully bad. The performance of the early Jayhawks tunes was somewhat ragged at times, but very moving as well. The rawness worked with the songs, as there's a plaintiveness that could draw from it. The vocal harmonies that Olson and Louris created were at times beautiful, just as they are on the albums. I lost myself in the music several times -- it was simply breathtaking.

When the newer Jayhawks tunes were performed (there were four, and all were from Rainy Day Music), local musician Steven McCarthy joined them on stage (as he did at a Jayhawks show I went to a couple of years ago) and contributed more to those songs than Olson did. I would have liked to see Louris and Olson develop harmonies here, as I'm sure they could have, but instead Olson kind of disappeared, serving as a backup guitarist. No complaints on the songs though -- they're all top-notch, just like the rest of the album, and Louris more than capably provided the lead vocals.

The painfully bad part of the concert was material from Olson's latest album, Political Manifest, which as the title suggests, is a political album. If the songs they played from that album were its highlights, I don't want to hear the lowlights. Lyrically, the songs stank (an opinion shared by the four of us in our group), and I'm saying that even though I generally agreed with the substance of them. After the concert, I suggested that we should write him with tips on how to construct better political tunes -- my friend Brent said that the best tip would be to tell him not to try ever again. I did enjoy the performance of "December's Child," a song off the Creekdippers album of the same name.

At some level it seemed as though Louris was doing this tour as a favor to Olson. The Jayhawks still have a decent following, whereas Olson has mostly vanished off the scene (Political Manifest isn't even on allmusic.com). Also, I believe they played more Olson solo tunes than post-Olson Jayhawks. And judging from the quality of Olson's post-Jayhawks work, it seemed like he needs the boost from a reunion much more than Louris does.

As a whole, I enjoyed the concert, and have no regrets on attending. But if the songs from Political Manifest had been replaced by something else (anything else, even an earlier ending), the evening would have been more enjoyable.

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Post-accident update: I woke up this morning with the left side of my neck and shoulders moderately sore, but I appear to have a full range of motion, and movement doesn't cause additional pain. I feel somewhat better this evening, and I figure I'll be ok in a couple of days.