The Detroit Cobras -w- Special Guest Greg Cartwright

Last night, the founding father's of this blog (so to speak though there is only one founding father) attended a performance by the Detroit Cobras and special guest Greg Cartwright of the Reigning Sound at the Mercury Lounge. I have some beef with the Detroit Cobras which I will get out of the way first.
The Detroit Cobras can be a great band, at least on record. There albums are intense, spirited rock 'n' roll that owes as much to the recent garage rock revival as it does to all the genres and sounds the band has covered on their albums. And the Cobras have something going for them that not many bands they cover or from the revival have and that is a female front singer (Rachel Nagy) with a voice and a personality to match. Unfortunately the magic doesn't come off in their live shows. The first time I saw the band was in college at a club in Boston. The band had driven a long distance to get there and didn't let the crowd forget that as the show went on. As if it was our fault they either left for the destination late or were booked into a hectic tour schedule. Besides gratng the crowd about this the Cobras played a short set, or so I thought at the time.
The next two times I saw the band, both times in Hoboken, the band played just as short a set and again the energy of the albums was missing. This could be for various reasons. Perhaps the band was tired and had an off-night as in Boston. A band can sort of get away with stinking it up in Boston, but New York City and surrounding clubs are a different story. The New York audience is less forgiving (ask A-Rod & Roger Maris) and the bulk of the country's major music press is centered here.
Adding the three previous Detroit Cobras shows to the one I attended last night, I am forced to come to the conclusion that the band did not have an off night nor was them being tired the reason the show was lacking. The Detroit Cobras just do not put on a good live show. This is a mixture of inept musicians who cannot pull it together like the soul & R & B groups they cover. Revues, back in the day, were well known for playing a few hundred shows a year and being tight no matter what. Touring often, as the Cobras do, should result in a honing in of the music. For whatever reason the Cobras have not been too sucessful here.
Additionally, maybe switching up the songs would help bring a little spontaneity to the stage and the band, including at times its singer, wouldn't feel like they are phoning the performance in from the last gig. Last night there lead singer kept a plastic cup in her hands the entire performance and none of the liquid inside of it ever slipped out. This is a rock band, and they just didn't rock. To make a bad pun, the band left the Detroit rock in that city and gave us a cover band performing Detroit Cobras covers with their lead singer and not to sucessfully. Thankfully the band only plays for an hour.
The highlight of the show had to be Shrimp Cracker and Hendo yelling out for King Khan and BBQ in a moment of silence in the club and promptly being told to shut up. And then upon Hendo's follow-up into the KK & BBQ ordeal being told by the merch guy (the fucking merch guy!) to back off.
Greg Cartwright of the Reigning Sound was good as usual. His songs seemed like a Joe Lies set without his back-up band but his voice (as Shrimp Cracker tried to recall) sounds quite familiar to someone else yet hard to put your finger on it. Somewhat interesting, Cartwright plays his acoustic as righty and his electric as a lefty (unless I have this reversed) and that is just odd, but good for him.
I do not mean to talk shit about the Cobras becuase I truly like there album output a lot, but their live shows always leave me feeling bored and grasping the fact that I got duped into purchasing a ticket again, but that is my own fault. The best part about a Cobras show, though, is Mr. Hendo always makes an appearance and that makes it all worth it.