Billed as “An Evening With Lucero”, the Southern rockers hit Austin on Friday for a show at ACL Live. In true fashion, “An Evening With” meant no opening act. Instead, the audience was treated to two sets from the band, one “acoustic” and one “electric.”
Lucero have always been essentially a hard rocking bar band, and it was refreshing to see them tone things down for the first set. That being said, this was still Lucero, so toning things down just meant lead singer Ben Nichols on acoustic and drummer Roy Berry using wooden brushes. But even those small changes breathed new life into Lucero staples like “That Much Further West”, “Texas & Tennessee”, and “Hate & Jealousy”, which were slowed down and felt more graceful than had they been played electric. The band seemed most excited to play songs off their new album All A Man Should Do, which worked well in the acoustic format considering that many of the songs feature more careful instrumentation, somber lyrics, and a subtle power pop influence. Those used to seeing Lucero charge through sets with rowdy, electrified abandon (that would come soon) were delighted to see the group easing up and taking their time.
With one set down and the crowd loosened up, the band returned to the stage and jumped into a set loaded with fan favorites. The crowd showed their appreciation by repeatedly offering shots to front man Ben Nichols, all of which he happily imbibed. Songs like “Nights Like These”, “Sweet Little Thing”, “Raising Hell”, and “Tears Don’t Matter Much” had people singing along and raising beers in the air, while “Young Outlaws” and “Women & Work” tapped into that Memphis soul sound with flourishes of trumpet and saxophone and Rick Steff’s saloon style boogie woogie piano playing. This set was basically a full Lucero show with around twenty songs packed in and the band keeping the energy high and the mood raucous for every minute of it.
Even with a brief intermission between the two sets, Lucero would end up playing close to three hours and proclaiming it to be one of their favorite shows ever. That may have been the alcohol talking, but based on the enthusiasm of the band and their fans, all signs pointed to it being true. By the time they came back for an encore that included “The War”, “All Sewn Up”, and “My Girl & Me in ’93”, a few of the band members were a little wobbly and all of them looked as pleased as the audience about having just put on hell-raising scorcher of a show. For going on twenty years Lucero has released a solid catalogue of hard rocking, well-written material that rarely if ever disappoints their fans. The same can be said about their live shows, which are as consistently great as their albums, and the show in Austin on Friday was no exception.
