Was anybody on this board among the sizable audience at this show? Wish I could have been there. His new album kept us highly entertained on our vacation.
Bobby Bare Jr. at Iota: Here Comes the Son
Wednesday, June 30, 2004; Page C12
Bobby Bare Jr. opened his set at Iota on Monday night with a new song, "Valentine," that set an impressive template for much of what followed. Accompanied by the four members of his Young Criminals' Starvation League, the song took a mid-tempo melody and stacked layers of powerful instrumentation -- including an electric slide guitar, keyboard and a double bass that was alternately bowed and beaten -- until all the parts cascaded into musical fury.
It also alerted the sizable audience to the dark humor of Bare's songs: This one may be named after the holiday of love, but the revealing line repeated in the chorus is "I killed my valentine."
An inveterate rocker, Bare has wisely stepped out of any shadow cast by his better-known father, the influential country singer Bobby Bare; the only country sound of the night was in a version of Shel Silverstein's "Things I Didn't Say," and even that was made memorable by a galloping onslaught of a chorus. Bare's voice is a cotton-swathed high tenor that fit preternaturally with the unlikely cover of the Smiths' "What Difference Does It Make?," matching Morrissey's famous warble nearly note for note.
