Venue: Tractor Tavern (Seattle, WA)
Date: November 3, 2007
Opener: Mozella
Setting the Scene
Entering a sold out early evening show at Seattle's Tractor Tavern, I set up shop toward the back of the venue as Mozella—the evening's opener—works through her set. In my mind, Mozella is a tall, gorgeous African-American woman with a head full of dreadlocks, sitting on a stool and leaning hard against her soulful folk-pop tunes that bring to mind some odd mix of India.Arie and Ani DiFranco. In fact, her rendition of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" sounds like it may be the way the song really wanted to be sung—sparsely, accompanied by acoustic guitar, and with a little bit of a country accent.As people move out of the way and a path toward the front begins to clear for me, I make my way toward the stage to discover that my imagination was way off. Mozella's really a short, blonde gal with big hoop earrings and a whole lot of energy. The crowd seems a bit distracted during her set, but her songs are interesting and catchy enough to make me look her up when I get home.
A Packed House
Bob Schneider is one of those artists whose work is memorable and innovative, but nobody ever knows who he is. So it's a pleasant surprise that, while I'm waiting in line, the folks from Tractor Tavern come outside to tape "Sold Out" signs to every window near the venue's entrance. Inside, the crowd is a nice balanced mix of young and old, male and female, city folk and people who clearly came in from the suburbs.When Schneider makes reference to Austin early in his set, most of the crowd erupts in hollers and applause, leading me to believe that many of them are Austin transplants, or at least people with a soft spot for Texas' "weirdest" city.
Indeed, Schneider doesn't need to work very hard to grip the crowd's attention. Making most of his efforts on a worn acoustic Taylor guitar, he's flanked to his right by a keyboard, off of which a harmonica hangs from its headgear.
Highlights
A sarcastic smile seemingly permanent on his face, Schneider opens his set with one of his strongest tunes, "2002." As a songwriter on record, his biggest asset is an innate ability to transport narrative folk songs into a realm of funky pop sensibility, so it's interesting to see him translate that gift in a live set. He does so calmly, lighting into each song with an energy that is both reticent and resonant. Another highlight of the evening is "I'm Good Now," a similarly sentimental tune from the album by the same name.Schneider's been at this long enough that he's developed a nice tongue-in-cheek, smart alecky way of dealing with hecklers. When one of the many swooning women call out early in the night, "Can we call you Bob?" He counters with, "Sure....but, I do prefer Mr. Schneider."
As the heckling and catcalls grow, he slips in some of his more novelty songs like "The Mummy" (complete with end-of-song crowd singalong) and an entertaining, passive-aggresive tune about getting beat up as a child. Between the silly numbers, he's able to work in some of his more sentimental tunes, which only serves to show off Schneider's agility as a writer and performer—undoubtably his greatest asset.
Bob Schneider is on tour now. Check out tour dates and more information at his Web site.
