AFTER-SHOW REVIEW: WAYNE SUTTON & KEVIN McKINNEY - Saxon Pub, Austin, Texas (3/5/01)


When we first drove up for the early show, about 8 pm, we were a little worried.
The parking lot was full at the Saxon on a Monday night. Very strange ... but a few
minutes with the opening artist, Austin's indomitable Beth Black, was more than 
pleasant enough to help us forget the longish walk to the club.


Wayne and Kevin came on about 8:30 pm to a range of audio difficulties. You'd think
it'd be easy to amplify two acoustic guitars and two voices, but Wayne had numerous
patch cord problems throughout the night. By the last thirty minutes, a request to 
mic the guitar provided the only satisfactory solution. Having said that, Richard, 
the longtime Saxon sound man does about the best sound in town. So who's to say why 
there was so much trouble last night? Bad luck, one would have to guess.


We've yet to check-out the only audience tape of the performance, but a setlist
would be nearly impossible, considering all the stops, starts, half-realized melodies,
doodles, tuning & breaks. But generally, drawing from the old and the obscure, Wayne 
& Kevin lazily tore-through (hows that for an oxymoron) their early catalogues. We
expected to hear a lot of covers, but mostly (and particularly due to Wayne's sound
problems) we heard some of Kevin's older stuff and SHAT Records material - "My Dream
is Over," "Save the Chickens," etc. Kevin also took one of Wayne's numerous technical
breaks to delight the small audience with "Garbage Man" (probably the first public
version of this song in at least six years) and "Fleas," an older number that never
made it off Kevin's four-track recordings ... but was performed recently at least once,
about three years ago when Kevin played solo at Flipnotic's Coffee Space.


Wayne's numbers, which Kevin tended to pick lightly through, were all outstanding
(wish we knew some of the names - and a request for "Take Me to a Place" went unheeded).
He's got such a great voice and talent that we wish we could see him like this more
often. 


The night was sprinkled with rarities and covers - "Brown Sabbath," (a personal favorite),
"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," and "I'm Only Sleeping". And serious bouts of humour
lightened things up after all the technical problems had been washed away by beer and
apple cider. Wayne threw a Zappa routine (from "Roxy and Elsewhere") into the end of
"Helpless." And when asked by an audience member to "play a Bob Schneider song," both
Kevin and Wayne laughed before Kevin sounded-off, "which one? Which one? They're all hits.
That's what's so great about him. Like the Beatles."


Can't say this was the best night of these performers' careers. Or most mind-blowing.
But it was entertaining right down to the core. And even a tape won't do it justice, 
since the night was largely about watching this "odd couple" interact onstage. When Kevin
suggested they do a Beatles song, for example, Wayne remarked, "You know, I never liked the
Beatles." And yet as Kevin crooned Lennon's "I'm Only Sleeping" in Wayne's direction, Wayne
started to pick-along amid laughter and astonishment. Never liked the Beatles? Only in an
atmosphere like this one could such an admission be the ticket to another great moment.


freer@soulhat.net
3.6.01, 12:03 am