For the second time in as many years, Cass McCombs graced the stage of East Atlanta's premier venue, the EARL. It was not the packed, sweaty Thursday night of 2012. It was a sparse room, maybe 80 people, who had braved their way to the club on a drizzling Monday night.
The band took the stage in a mild-mannered form that has become somewhat of a signature for the quiet songwriter. They blazed through the first three tracks, barely stopping between them, as if they didn't want to risk the applause. But as they hit their stride in "Their Can Be Only One", the loose, jammy single from McCombs' latest album, Big Wheel and Others, something clicked.
They settled into the groove, the rhythm of the room. Joe Russo, of the Benevento/Russo Duo and Further, who played on the Big Wheel sessions, was pulling double duty on bongos with his right hand while holding down the beat with a single stick in his left. Jon Shaw moved effortlessly through the Mike Gordon bass lines, careful not to just copy the Phish bassist's studio work. And Dan Lead traded funky rhythms and quick fills with Cass on guitar.
They became a force, swapping musical cues in an almost extra-sensory trance. Precision and mastery of the songs and the sound mixed with an excitement that came only from exploration. The band was in their own world, but at that moment, they opened up to us. There was an intimacy that grew, a bond with the crowd that overtook the whole mood of the club for the rest of the set.
"Cass is amazing. But with this new band, they're unstoppable," said Corey Allender, bass player in Arbouretum, who served up some sludgey, driving, fuzz-laced melodies as the opener on Monday night. He's watched McCombs and company play almost every night of the past few weeks, and he's still in awe, still on his toes throughout every set.
"I don't know how they do it," he spoke quickly in between songs, "They add another three or four new songs to the set every night." The drums of "Big Wheel" rumbled in from the back of the stage. "Fuck yeah," he said. "I love this song."
The 20-date tour is a bit of a musical mismatch, Allender admitted to me, and superficially, he's right. Arbouretum is an eclectic mix of folky stoner/doom rock, not exactly what springs to mind when you think of Cass's sound. But in the pairing, there's insight into McCombs' songs and his fan base. In order to truly appreciate his records, it's crucial to have an unusually diverse taste in music.
McCombs is an enigmatic figure. He has garnered the reputation of a nomad, a troubadour. But as much as he moves from place to place in life, he moves twice as fast in his music. If you were to listen to "Love Thine Enemy", you'd be tempted to call his music Rock. "Pregnant Pause" is a finger-picked acoustic number. "Joe Murder" could be considered post-rock, even avant-garde. The songs don't seem to fit together, from album to album. And yet, every one of those tunes made an appearance on Monday night, fitting seamlessly into the set. The band was riding wave after wave on a steady ocean of McCombs' back catalog. Songs from Prefection, Catacombs, and Wit's End all came out with full confidence, spawning almost effortless jams and improvisations. They even pulled out an unreleased track that Cass called "The Missing Link". The small crowd even coaxed an encore, a fantastic version of "County Line".
But with the final chords of the night still echoing off the walls of the EARL, the band left the stage, and the trance was broken. It was past midnight. I walked to my car in a daze, reveling in the afterglow, reflecting on the purity of that organic performance, and, ultimately, forgetting to close my bar tab.
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