Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
January 13th at World Café Live, Philadelphia

“This is Cracker Soul, it comes so easy…” And easy and enjoyable it did come at World Café Live on Wednesday with David Lowery and his two bands rocking the sold out house for over three hours. Philly locals were treated to a double-dose of Lowery’s crafty lyrics and raspy vocals, along with two very tight ensembles of musicians, each bringing their own touch to the Lowery rock ‘n’ roll projects.

Opening the evening was Lowery’s first effort, Camper Van Beethoven, a formation that was born in 1985, disbanded by 1990, but resurrected in the early part of the millennium after more than a decade-long hiatus. Though Lowery’s distinctive vocals cannot be mistaken in either of his artistic enterprises, Camper undoubtedly has a sound and energy of its own. Standing out in the CVB set was multi-talented Jonathan Segel with his melodic, but sometimes wailing, violin. When Segel wasn’t hitting the high notes on the fiddle, he was contributing on keyboard, guitar, and backing vocals.
Camper belted out a powerful 20-song set including “Eye of Fatima (Parts 1 & 2)”, “Take the Skinheads Bowling”, and “All Her Favorite Fruit.” But by far the most-recognizable tune of Camper’s performance was a cover of Status Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men”, where Lowery and band, particularly Segel on violin, turned the volume up a few notches from Quo’s original version. After a brief intermission, Lowery was back on stage with his other band, Cracker, featuring co-founding member Johnny Hickman on lead guitar and vocals, Sal Maida on bass, and Frank Funaro banging on the kit (who also drummed for Camper).

Cracker opened their set with Friends, an acoustic cut off of their new CD, Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey. This would prove to be the only time Lowery would don his acoustic guitar, and also proved to be one of only a small handful of songs off of the Sunrise album. Since most bands tour to plug their new material, I found this to be rather surprising, and slightly disappointing, given that their latest work ranks up there with their best.

The Cracker set had a totally different vibe to it than Camper’s gig, with Lowery providing frequent introductions to the songs. Prior to easing into “Euro-Trash Girl” (by far Cracker’s longest song, at about eight minutes), Lowery proceeded to tell a humorous lead-in story that was probably longer than the song itself. “Yalla Yalla”, the first cut off of Sunrise, was also accompanied by a lengthy intro about the song’s inspiration, which was provided by Cracker’s performance for the troops in Iraq. I sensed that Lowery would have liked to go off on a political rant, but he exercised restraint and kept the evening on its rock ‘n’ roll track.

Like Camper, Cracker put together about a 20-song set, which was disappointingly void of their biggest hit, “Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now)”, but the crowd favorites, “Mr. Wrong” and “Cracker Soul” (and the previously-mentioned “Euro-Trash Girl”), more than made up for that.

The energy of the evening peaked with all of the members of Camper Van Beethoven joining Cracker on stage for a couple of encores, closing out a respectable double-bill of David Lowery’s soulful endeavors in the City of Brotherly Love.

Watch: Cracker, “Euro-Trash Girl” at [youtube.com]

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