The Nils Lofgren Band’s live album Weathered is not just a suitable companion piece to the leader’s 2019 release Blue With Lou, it’s an uncanny mirror image of that studio album. Comprised of concert recordings culled from last year’s road work in support of the aforementioned record, this double-CD set carries much the same potency, along with roughly the same small percentage of blemishes that undermine its overall impact.
The power of the ensemble is formidable nonetheless, reestablishing as it does Nils’ long-time bond with this rhythm section, drummer Andy Newmark and bassist Kevin McCormick, as well as the guitarist/songwriter/vocalist’s multi-instrumentalist sibling Tom. Sans any additional enclosure to alleviate the busy graphics of the digi-pak (perhaps designed for the larger dimensions of a vinyl package to come?), the music speaks for itself. It’s gloriously loud at times, to be sure, as on “Across The Tracks,” but also incorporates tangible dynamics nurtured through the inclusion of softer tunes such as “Like Rain.”
This overall mix of material thus enhances the flow of the performance, at least most of the time. Songs like the latter, a cull from the days of Lofgren’s Grin band, reside next to other solo selections such as “No Mercy,” while extracts from his homage to the late titular leader of the Velvet Underground appear in the form of “Give” and “Don’t Let Your Guard Down.” There are some choice covers too, the most notable of which is “Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” a Temptations tune that emerges out a jam immediately following Hank Williams’ “Mind Your Own Business.”
The good-natured likes of the latter, featuring brothers Mike and Mark Lofgren, unfortunately, smacks of ‘you had to be there,’ so it might better have been excised in favor of more instrumental workouts like that which closes the album within “I Came to Dance.” Or perhaps, given Nils’ history with Neil Young, a tune from the Canadian rock icon might well have taken the place of the lachrymose “Tender Love.” Then too, one or two numbers from the eponymous Lofgren solo record (aka ‘The Fatman’ ) would paint a colorful and vivid portrait of the frontman over the course of his entire near-half century career.
As it stands, though, Weathered is still a plenty accurate sketch of Nils Lofgren, circa 2020. At its best, this music is about as pure as rock and roll gets these days, brimming with braggadocio most evident in Lofgren’s guitar prowess; his fretboard work remains a combustible mix of the playful and the gritty and it almost but not quite overshadows the unity of the band, even in near-whispered form on “Too Blue To Play.” Working under the aegis of the bandleader and spouse Amy as co-producers, recordist and mixer Matt Bittman’s work (then mastered by Greg Lukens and Ryan Billings) effectively puts the listener stage front and center to feel the pulse of the audio’s presence.
All the better to savor the sound as the quintet weaves in and out of “Daddy Dream” and “Girl In Motion,” at fourteen-plus minutes five longer than the former. Tight as the group is, their cohesion allows for that rare loose quality wherein the musicianship almost literally breathes; for instance, on the aforementioned opener, Lofgren wails on guitar, while Mizelle does the same with her voice (and does so equally effectively all by herself on “Big Tears Fall”). With a total playing time running just under two hours (entertaining spoken repartee and all), Weathered is ideal for those music lovers who dote on the dramatic spontaneity of observing players and singers in action.
The album’s title, in fact, suggests most of the sixteen cuts bear out. In the years since a precocious Nils Lofgren played on After The Gold Rush, his versatility has been less ravaged by time than burnished by experience. No doubt that’s the reason his creative partners clearly delight in continuing to work with him, that along with the fact the results of their enduring relationship(s) are as generally uplifting and infectious as they sound here.
