Concerts #534, 535 - Jackshit at McCabe's and The Baked Potato (December 6, December 30, 2009)

December 2009 was a good month. Our home remodeling project had just ended and my contractor and I were still answering each other's phone calls. Having been very happy with his work, I felt that monetary compensation alone just wasn't good enough and that I had to do something special to express our thanks. So I gave him Jackshit. That is, a pair of tickets to see Jackshit at McCabe's.

From L to R: Eddie, Monique, My Better Half and Yours Truly

Eddie and his wife, Monique, had never seen a top-notch act at close range, so sitting in the front row at McCabe's was an event in itself. Then the boys from Cochtotan took the stage and they blew my guests away. They played pretty much their usual set, starting with "Hi, How Are Ya" and "Christine's Song" and finishing off with "I'm Coming Home". There were no guests and no Shit Horns, but there were plenty of murder ballads, bird calls and words of praise addressed to Shorty's cock (the one on his cowboy hat).

Pete and Shorty at McCabe's (December 9, 2009)

Rock & Roll Hall-Of-Famer Pete Thomas after the show

Two weeks later, good news from the Baked Potato: Jackshit had just been booked to play a year-end show there, on December 30. I called up my good friend and fellow-shithead Hans and we entered the club at 7:00 PM sharp, hoping to grab the best two seats in the house. To our huge disappointment, each and every decent seat had a "Reserved" sign, so we ended up sitting on the side, in the noisy and always crowded bar area, even though we were the first two souls to walk in. Damn ... something like that would never happen at McCabe's, where they do respect the crazies like me who line up early. 

Jackshit came out shortly after 9 PM and played one long set. There were four or five new songs, "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" was one of them - that was a bit of a surprise, as they typically lean toward lesser-known gems. Well, the other new songs were definitely "lesser-known" - I couldn't place a single one of them and I wasn't gonna go home without getting some answers first. My answers came immediately after the show, when the always approachable Shorty removed the mystery from the songs I had trouble identifying. Here they are:

• "Boom Boppa Boom" - From Jimmie Vaughan's repertoire
• "Get Out Of My Life Woman - Lee Dorsey's mild hit from the sixties
• "I Hung It Up" - Junior Brown's 1996 single that did not chart

All-in-all, I could not have thought of a better ending for the 2009 concert year.