Dave Alvin, Largo at the Coronet, 11/08/08

A trip from home to the L.A. Westside that takes 45 minutes in clear traffic, took 90 minutes in frustratingly slow traffic. I get tense when I think I'm going to be late to anything.... Don was very patient, and I finally relaxed when we arrived by 7pm. We parked, got our seating assignment from Will Call and wandered down La Cienega Blvd. to find some food, since the show was not until 9pm. PF Chang could seat us quickly, so we opted for fusion-y, quasi-Chinese food.

Back at Largo by 8:40, we walked into this 1940's era stucco building, through a brick-paved, open interior courtyard and into the gathering crowd in the 180-seat theater. Danny Ott's wife Robin was near the back in the "family & friends of the band" seats and came down to warmly greet us. We settled into 3rd row seats and spent 20 minutes gawking and absorbing the vibe of the old Coronet building, formerly a live theater venue. (Charles Laughton performed there!) Largo used to be on Fairfax and just moved to the Beverly Center area. It's near a fancy Beverly Hills shopping area, but not SO fancy.... if you stand in the courtyard and look out the front entrance archway, you see the red neon sign across the street advertising "NUDE GIRLS! LIVE LIVE LIVE!" (as opposed to dead, I asked myself?)

The house lights dimmed and Dave Alvin, in jeans, boots and a black leather jacket, took the stage with Greg Liesz on pedal steel, mando and slide guitar and tore into "King of California". Song by song, more friends joined him on stage until he had a keyboard/piano player (whose name I missed), Chris Miller on smokin' electric guitar and Danny Ott, acoustic guitar and vocals. Dave Alvin paid tribute to his late friend Chris Gaffney throughout the show - he played "Six Nights A Week" and several of The Gaff's original tunes written about their early years together. He also paid his respects to the late John Stewart with "California Bloodlines", and as a general salute to departed friends, he played "Somewhere In Time".

Our friend Danny Ott was in fine form - his guitar work was spot-on precise and a worthy compliment to Alvin's lead and his back-up vocals on Abilene and Fourth of July were gems. You did good, Danny! Greg Leisz was his usual masterful self, switching seamlessly from mando to pedal steel to slide guitar, looking like he happened to stop by for a beer and picked up the instrument you had sitting in the corner, just to play along.

(I know I don't have these in the right order)

King Of California

Dry River

California Snow

Abilene

Shenandoah

Out in California

Every Night About This Time

Six Nights A Week

Artesia (from Gaffney's Mi Vida Loca album)

Somewhere In Time

Mary Brown

Jubilee Train

Out of Control

1968

Ashgrove

Fourth of July

California Bloodlines

We bought CDs and a t-shirt and hummed those tunes all the way home.