Music Review — David Lindley Live

Eric Sandberg reviews David Lindley live at McCabes Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA 5/4/19

What better place to watch maxi-instrumentalist David Lindley perform than a guitar shop. In fact the packed house was rife with guitar enthusiasts. it was a long running joke for former McCabe's emcee Lincoln, while introducing the show, to ask the audience members to each grab a guitar on the way out in case of a fire. My Knock and Knowall partner Mike killed the time before the show by rating the guitars on the wall on their extraction worthiness with the guy sitting behind us.

At 8:00 PM sharp, with little fanfare, the seventy-five year old Lindley ambled down the creaky wooden stairs and tiptoed through a minefield of exotic and expensive looking stringed instruments strewn about the floor.

Except for his brightly colored shirt, which he claimed to be Christian Dior, Lindley looked like a long haul trucker who never saved a dime — with requisite cap and billowy white sideburns. From his perch Lindley scanned the floor around him. "Looks like shit!" He mentioned that it had been a while since he'd been here and that he took a year off.

"I've been on tour constantly since I was sixteen. I decided maybe I should [sotto voce] slow.....down. My father's mother — I called her grandmother — had a hernia from moving a couch. Her philosophy was just keep movin.' keep liftin."

With that, the former sideman for Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, Bob Dylan and many others bent over and retrieved a Turkish oud that was perched precariously on a flight case and began plucking a mesmerizing raga which finally resolved into "Ain't No Way" from Lindsey's brilliant first solo album El Rayo-X.

With each song Lindley bent over, laying one instrument down and picking up another: Ouds, bouzoukis, Weissenborn acoustic lap slides, but he never touched a traditional guitar — that would have been boring. He paid homage to the late Warren Zevon with two songs, "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me' and the exquisite "The Indifference of Heaven." 

"When I heard Warren Zevon had written a song called "[Beneath] The Indifference of Heaven" I said 'ooh...I've got to hear that. That sounds good...and it was." 

After Praising Danny O'Keefe to the rafters, "If he's playing, cancel what you're doing and go," Lindley performed O'Keefe's humorous ode "[He Would Have Loved You] More than Eva Braun," a song O'Keefe himself has performed on the same stage. 

The hour and a half set included many more stories, instrument switches and Lindley's unique singing voice which occasionally channeled deepest Appalachia. Lindley wrapped things up with a funny story about Ry Cooder receiving a phone call as they were about to begin a rehearsal one day. 

"Ry listened to the caller with a concerned look, occasionally saying 'that's too bad.' After a while he began rocking back and forth on his heels. He held the phone away from his ear and made a face. He finally told the person he was in rehearsals and people were waiting for him and he'd call back. Ry told us 'That was a fella who is in the self-meat grinder.' I thought 'Now there's a song!"

After performing his wry and lengthy concert favorite "Meat Grinder Blues" Lindley thanked the audience for coming but stayed seated as he received a standing ovation.

"Okay, Okay," he said and played us one more song. When you're seventy-five you get to perform encores without actually leaving the stage. It was just another sublime evening with a charming, witty and talented man who, I can only imagine, has been a joy to tour with for all these years. 

If you live in Southern California, be warned that David Lindley continues his guitar shop tour,  bringing his stringed menagerie to The Fret House in Covina Saturday, May 18th.

https://www.davidlindley.com/

https://www.mccabes.com/concerts/
 
https://dola.com/venues/the-fret-house