Well, Last Train Home is out of the gate and they have their first Barns performance under their belts. It was really nice to have everyone there-and by everyone I mean-Bill Williams, Scott McKnight and Alan Brace. I find it really hard to imagine Last Train Home LIVE with out that triumverate.

One of the first things that attracted me to this band was having heard them on Americana Motel. I found the Joe Triplet song that they did on that recording ripe and dripping with harmonies that I had not heard on any recording done in my lifetime. A musician friend of mine that has played in pick-up bands around DC do 20+ years would speak of the elusiveness of intensly layered harmonies found in early-country and bluegrass music. According to him, you randomly assemble a group of male musicians, and no matter how talented they are, they can't harmonize. Their egos and large musical knowledge get in the way. They sing to hear themselves, they don't mean to, it just happens. Well LTH has males, and egos and large musical knowledges-they manage, not all the time, but more often than not to have 4+ voices, 3+ guitars (plus Steel and Mandolin) and rhythm all going to the same place-harmony. A prodigeous accomplishment, if ever there was one.

I hypothetically suppose that this is one of the reasons that a number of men seem to unequivocally fall in love with this band and Eric Brace's charismatic lead. it also does not hurt that the band doesn't shy away from covering and rearranging songs like Bill Monroe's "Walls of Time", Buck Owen's "Heartbreak Mountain" or Dave Alvin's "So Long, Baby Goodbye". The first time "Walls of Time" crossed my ears in a live show, I almost passed out. What a joy. This masterpiece of lyrics is on my all time favorite songs list-I'd heard it on late night WAMU bluegrass by Monroe himself and thought myself possibly alone in being touched by this song so deeply. The passion that LTH sets up in their arrangement, often due to the overwhelming intensity and of Lee Wilhoit's singing, left no doubt in my mind that my favorite song would live on. They bought Lee up on stage at The Barns and I got to dance like my 'name was carved upon the tombstone'.

The Barns 'general admission dance' is a nice set up. You have the option of sitting concert style in the balcony, like The State Theater or hitting the boards, standing style right up by the stage. There is a bar in a separate room and while the LTH show was sold out the place didn't feel packed.

I guess one of the other highlights of the night was hearing 'Sugar' a cover that they've been doing since before their first CD came out. They've been working the song long enough to have made it into a mystery novel by local author George Pelacanos called "Shame the Devil". Eric delighted in reading George's prescient prose where the band The Silos opens for Last Train Home. Well perhaps this was because The Silos did open up for Last Train Home at The Barns. What fun. I wonder if there was a private detective in the audience who went home and had steamy sex? Go to their Websiteif you want to see what I am talking about. So apparently The Silos will open for LTH at IOTA on the 21st of December. Go see this. They were great, I heard the Silos bassist say, like 10 times, to myself and others, "we held back 'cause it's like, The Barns". They were pretty damn intense, so I am pretty damn sorry I will miss that IOTA show. Spottiswoode and his Enemies will open the LTH IOTA show on Friday the 20th. Spottiswoode can also be pretty freakin intense when provoked and I will be there for them, so I will just have to make due.