[Editor’s Note: Frequent Flyer contributor Stephen Deusner is a former Memphian now living in New York City.]
I haven’t seen a Lucero show in nearly a decade, when they were a local band playing to a handful of Memphians at the Hi-Tone. So imagine my shock when I ventured out into Manhattan last night to catch the Ramblin’ Roadshow & Memphis Revue at Webster Hall. Newly relocated to the city, I figured the venue would be fairly small and cramped, holding a couple of hundred Tennessee ex-pats and some curious onlookers. I was way off. When did Lucero get huge?
For one thing, Webster Hall is enormous, and while the balcony was roped off as VIP only, the floor itself holds more than just about any venue in Memphis save the Orpheum or the Shell. It was surprisingly spacious, even for a band touring behind a major label debut that ranked 114 in its first week on the Billboard charts. Could Lucero even fill half of Webster Hall, especially with an early show that started at 7 p.m.?
Openers Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcolm opened to a handful of early concertgoers, and the crowd slowly trickled in throughout their set and Amy Lavere’s impressive show. As a revue, there wasn’t much interaction between the artists — Lavere didn’t duet with Ben Nichols, and Malcolm didn’t jam with Brian Venable — but the lineup did expose some of the musical veins (specifically the juke joint blues from North Mississippi) running through the songs of all three acts.
