SHOW REVIEW – Two Cow Garage – Fletch’s Last Call – Flint, MI – Sunday May 21, 2012

There’s nothing like heading up to the barren streets of Flint, Michigan on a late Sunday night for a rock show at a strip-club-turned-local-band-dive.    If you haven’t seen Two Cow Garage – the hard working, country-punk underdogs from Columbus, Ohio – then you wouldn’t understand.  I’ve seen these guys playing to a sold-out Abbey Pub in Chicago (as support on the supposed-to-be-final Slobberbone tour)  and to a wide range of capacities in Detroit-area clubs over the last decade.  It just doesn’t seem to make a difference to them how many people are there – they shoot to kill like it’s their last chance every time.

 

From the opening drum pounding of Lucy and the Butcher Knife from their latest LP Sweet Saint Me, both singer/guitarist Micah Schnabel and bassist/occasional singer Shane Sweeny are shot out of a cannon, bouncing off each other  and falling around their guitars in some sort of a spastic trance of blistering melody and volume.  The glue that holds this band together is clearly the bond between these two, who have seen drummers and second guitarists come and go over the years.  The backbone is Micah’s songs – combining the perfect blend of angst and urgency with moments of honest poetry and sharp hooks that seem to come one after another before you’ve even processed what you’ve just heard.

 

For the next 45 minutes they relied heavily on that backbone and glue,  drawing mainly from their last couple records, sometimes conferring between songs and sometimes just transitioning on auto-pilot (they never use a set list).  Their catalog is deep and strong, but the Sweet Saint Me songs are the focal point of the set and showcase their evolution in songwriting over the years.  Other highlights included the 2 tracks from 2007’s Three – Come Back to Shelby and No Shame and the closer – a raw but well-nailed version of  Elvis Costello’s (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love & Understanding.

 

The only downsides to the night were the poor sound and overcrowded 5-band bill. The room was unforgiving and the PA system was inadequate, providing inaudible vocals through crappy mics against a modest backline that most venues would have been better prepared for.  And I am not sure why small clubs too often feel the need to pack 5 bands on a bill that should have been 3 tops.  Two Cow was touring with The Only Sons (Murfreesboro, TN) who’s dirty-blues/Southern Rock would have been a perfect opener with maybe a complementing local band playing an early, short set.

 

In the end it was all worth it though.  Two Cow Garage were as grateful to the late Sunday stragglers at Fletch’s Last Call as they were to the crowd at the Abbey years ago, and at the end of the night, as Shane toasted the crowd on “their Sabbath,” we could only look forward to the next time they come back to Michigan.

Tagged Alt-Country, Americana, Coumbus, Detroi, Flint, Ohio, Two Cow Garage