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belatedly, here are a few quick words about wednesday night’s cuff the duke show:

mitch and i arrived at the grad club quite early, and virginia (the gc’s manager) rushed over to us and told me that she’d found my website (hence the matt barber comment). she also mentioned that she’d booked joel plaskett for two nights in november, and told stories about the wolf island festival, sarah harmer and jill barber. woo.

the openers were called moses mayes (no relation to matt mays, who i saw the previous saturday – although perhaps the addition of an ‘e’ might’ve given that away to astute readers), and i knew nothing about them. they’re a pretty talented instrumental 7 piece funk band – picture the new deal without the polish and with a fuller sound (complete with a small horn section, no less). lots of fun jamming to in front of a mostly unappreciative crowd seated in their chairs. truthfully, moses mayes should not have been on the same bill as cuff the duke – funk + alt.country? apparently the combination can be attributed to the fact that both bands share a booking agent. regardless, i enjoyed their set and the amount of fun they seemed to be having, in spite of the crazy heat.

cuff the duke played an energetic set, as i’d expect from them. they played a good mix of old and new to a jam packed crowd who (surpisingly to me) seemed to know every lyric from life stories for minimum wage. their new stuff has, for the most part, a little bit less of a country feel than the old, but there are some clear exceptions. the only downside to the evening was the fact that ctd had been touring for a while in opening slots (for hayden – cool), so they weren’t used to playing headliner-length sets. combine this with the lack of a set list, and there was a LOT of between-song discussion about which songs they remembered how to play, totalling, by our estimation, at least 20 minutes to a half hour. regardless, i don’t think i’ll ever get tired of watching wayne petti’s guitar-neck-in-the-air stance, or his tendency to roam through the crowd with reckless abandon, tangling fans in his cables as a result.