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| Lucinda Williams and her band & Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs @ the Fox Theater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Monday night saw Mike Campbell and Lucinda Williams entertain a wildly enthusiastic audience at Oakland’s Fox Theater as they joined forces on their “Alone and Together: Come Hell or High Water” tour. The concert was broken into three sets with Williams and her band taking the first turn, Campbell (famed guitarist of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers) then performing with his band The Dirty Knobs and both artists sharing the stage for the final set.
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| Lucinda Williams and her band @ the Fox Theater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Williams – whose inspiring return from a devastating stroke has been well-documented – was making her fourth stop (at least) in the Bay Area in the last 18 months having played the Stern Grove Festival this summer, Berkeley’s Greek last year and Napa’s Uptown a few weeks earlier. She was welcomed to the stage with a passionate standing ovation – particularly from the fans down front who would shout “We love you Lucinda” throughout the night. Indeed, every song Williams performed was met with a standing ovation and shouts of encouragement as Williams continually expressed her deep gratitude.
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| Lucinda Williams @ the Fox Theater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Her 11-song set featured many highlights – including the opening couplet of “Can’t Let Go” and “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” and a fiery, defiant version of “Joy.” Tragedy has never strayed far from Williams and she dedicated her third song “Stolen Moments” to Tom Petty and her fourth song “Drunken Angel” to Blaze Foley. “He would be thrilled to see and hear you all hooting and hollering for him. He was shot and killed one day in a senseless argument. I wrote this song for him.”
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| Lucinda Williams and her band & Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs @ the Fox Theater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Williams introduced “Ghosts of Highway 20” as a “sister song” to “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.” “There were billboards that said, ‘Repent Now.’ I used to see those when I was a kid and they scared the hell out of me.” “Out of Touch” was delivered as a deep rocker with her longtime guitarist Doug Pettibone bringing out multiple solos in the song – including one that started very chunky before driving the song to a close with a screaming wail. She ended her set with a powerful cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” that had the entire crowd up.
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| Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs @ the Fox Theater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
After a brief intermission, Campbell & The Dirty Knobs took the stage for a nine-song set that leaned into their terrific new album Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits. Campbell is joined in the Knobs by former Heartbreaker drummer Steve Ferrone, bassist Lance Morrison and guitarist Chris Holt and their chemistry was impossible to miss – particularly between decades-long bandmates Ferrone and Campbell. After opening with the new “Angel of Mercy” and then “Wreckless Abandon,” Campbell dedicated the new album’s single “Dare to Dream” to the local team at Pixar, who had helped with video for the album.
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| Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs @ the Fox Theater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
“Shake These Blues” was a fun musical journey of its own as the song moved from a more traditional blue number with a Campbell blues solo into a psychedelic jam that screamed with an essence of Jimi Hendrix. As the audience erupted at the end of the song, Campbell seemed a bit taken aback by the crowd’s energy – particularly when one very boisterous man let out a loud, positive scream. “That’s what we call a Rebel Yell…or maybe it’s an Oakland Yell,” Campbell told the crowd as he looked back and smiled at the band and then turned back to the audience “You guys are fu#%ing nuts! We are gonna have a blast tonight!”
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| Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs @ the Fox Theater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
The first Petty song of the night followed with a deeper track that is well-loved among Pettyphiles. “You Got Lucky” saw Campbell leaving the microphone and walking the stage as he directed the crowd to repeat the chorus “Good love is hard to find.” After he had introduced the band and Ferrone had given a touching introduction of Campbell, they finished their spotlight set with “I Still Love You” and “Southern Boy” (featuring breakneck pacing and jaw-dropping cymbal work from Ferrone) sandwiching a thrilling version of Petty’s “Even the Losers”.
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| Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs @ the Fox Theater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Both artists had put in fine 1-hour performances on their own – Williams with her touring band first and then Campbell & The Dirty Knobs – but the night really cranked up the energy when Williams and her bandmates joined Campbell and his band for a set that felt like a jam session between two friends playing some of their favorite music. Ironically, they did not play the very song off Campbell’s new album that the tour had been named after. “Come Hell or High Water” is a terrific duet on record with Campbell and Williams, but a hits-filled set left no feeling of missing out.
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| Lucinda Williams and her band & Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs @ the Fox Theater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Campbell summoned Williams back to the stage with a “Come on out here Lucinda” and the crowd once again gave her a standing ovation with shouts of “We Love You Lucinda” coming from those down close. From there, they tore through a blistering version of “Changed the Locks” with Campbell on harmonica while Williams’ guitarist Doug Pettibone took lead for the song – originally written and performed by Williams in 1988 and then covered by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers in 1996. The song always brings out plenty of attitude and fire, but with the Knobs backing as well, the night’s version carried a unique power and momentum.
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| Lucinda Williams and her band & Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs @ the Fox Theater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
A slowed down, sweet version of Williams’ “Jackson” followed with Pettibone taking a slide solo on his guitar. After “Metal Firecracker,” Williams introduced their first true Petty cover “I love this next song. I think it might well be my favorite Tom Petty Song.” They then played a touching, deeply personal-feeling version of Petty’s ode to his deep south roots - “Southern Accents.”
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| Lucinda Williams and her band & Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs @ the Fox Theater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
“OK. Let’s have some fun,” Campbell told the crowd before setting the band off on a reckless ramble through “Wild Thing” with both Campbell and Williams sharing vocals as the crowd left their seats and danced lustily in the aisles and sides of the theater. With Campbell on guitar, Williams’ “Right in Time” sounded like it could have been an original from Petty & The Heartbreakers. Finally, the crowd erupted as the night was finished with an extended and highly energized version of Petty’s “You Wreck Me.” The audience reacted to the end of a welcome night with an extended ovation as Campbell and Williams waved with enthusiastic appreciation and then left the stage with wide smiles across their faces.
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