Reay Jespersen

Ever-knowing of favourite bands coming to town, Barry called up Jackie and me some weeks back and asked if we’d be interested in going to the Mike Doughty concert at the Mod Club downtown. Having seen him play once before, I was certainly up for it, and Jackie - not as familiar with him but always happy to catch a good live show - was in, as well. We called up other friend/fans Jeremy and Katie, and they were able to go once they made some babysitting arrangements for their young sons.

Then synchronicity hit. Leslie, Shatton’s wife, has a new site called Popshifter she’s been working on recently, and she made arrangements to have Barry interview Doughty for the website (watch for the interview on her site soon), and then the Hattons joined us for the show as well. And Barry had invited another friend, so an initial group of three turned out to be eight, all into catching the show, which was cool.

Opening band The Panderers held their own, though were generally a bit lax for my tastes. Then Doughty hit the stage with his band, mainly performing songs from his new album Golden Delicious, with a few older ones from his first CD, Haughty Melodic.

Doughty has a very comfortable, casual style on stage, not only at ease playing any of his songs (he’s known for taking requests for songs of his), but bantering with members of the band and audience between each. He’s an excellent performer who I’d highly recommend seeing whenever you get the chance.

The lighting guy at the Mod Club apparently thought that Doughty should stand out from the rest of the band, so had a spotlight on him for most of the show which lit him up like a Roman candle, so my camera phone - as good as it is - wasn’t able to get great pics, but the couple here will at least give you an idea of what was happening…

All members of the band wore suit jackets for the show, which looked good but must’ve been sweltering. Doughty is the sweaty one on the right.

Doughty uses sound sampling in some of his material. Here, he rubbed some funk on it with a his new song, the drum-heavy Too Much Bacon For The Pan To Handle.