Slow Runner & Josh Ritter

AJ and I saw Slow Runner open for Josh Ritter at Variety last night. I was surprised to see SR without their drummer or bass player, but it was cool to hear the stripped-down versions of their songs with just Michael Flynn (vox, keys) and Josh Kaler (guitar, backup vox). You may remember this band from such EYM posts as our first ever back in March.

Flynn opened the set solo with a new song "Long Division" (see video below). Later, Josh Kaler joined in on guitar and harmonies. Slow Runner played some familiar stuff off their first album ("Redneck Bar", "You're In Luck", "Break Your Mama's Back", "Everything Is Exactly What It Seems") as well as some new stuff, including a tongue-in-cheek piece Flynn wrote on the road called "1 of 3" about always playing second (or third) fiddle to the headlining bands on the tour.

I was disappointed they didn't play "Streamlined" but I'm not sure how it would have worked without the rest of the band.

I'd never seen Josh Ritter before but I'd heard some of his stuff. I liked it okay. He played the entire show with a huge goofy grin on his face. With his alt-country/rock/pop-ish style, he kinda reminded me of a poor man's Ryan Adams... you know, if Ryan Adams had never cheated on his homework, or been hungover, or had his heart broken.

Ritter's bass player, Colonel Sanders, was all dressed up in a white suit and a white Stetson hat, and was sporting a dark pointy beard and handle-bar moustache. He was hilarious.

I also took a couple of videos with my new digital camera. It's a tiny Casio Exilim, but the video quality is surprisingly decent. Apologies for the shakiness and poor cinematography in general. Still getting the hang of it!

Slow Runner - Long Division

Here's a link to another video from the show of another new song. Not sure on the name. This one got cut off when the memory card on my camera filled up. Also, you may notice about 32 seconds into this one that some a-hole forgot to silence his cell phone before the show started. Yah, so maybe that a-hole was me.