Gary Louris – Mid Sussex Music Hall, Hassocks – 25th July 2024

The Jayhawks have certainly been one of the bands that I have been listening to regularly for the past twenty years, always putting quality material in spite of regular band upheavals and hiatuses. Back in 2008, I travelled to Spain to catch The Jayhawks reunion at the Azkena Rock Festival. Seeing the Hollywood Town Hall / Tomorrow The Green Grass line up playing all these wonderful songs was a real treat. Still regret not saying how great the show was to Mark Olson when he was sitting near me at the airport the following morning ! A year later I was in Paris to catch a duo Louris and Olson show where they were airing tracks from their recently released Ready For The Flood album. Unfortunately the Olson/Louris partnership didn’t survive the fully fledged Jayhawks reunion that generated the Mockingbird Time album and my next encounter with the band was a London show in 2014 where they were promoting reissues of their three post Mark Olson albums from the late nineties, early noughties. 

I had a tickets to see Gary Louris live back in 2007 at a small venue in Paris but I hadn’t managed to attend so the prospect of seeing Louris live playing Jayhawks tunes and other tracks was really exciting. Opening all the shows on the tour ( and joining Gary on a few tracks) was the excellent Dave Fiddler who got a great reception from the capacity crowd at the Music Hall.

Louris chose a tried and tested track to start the evening with one of The Jayhawks’ catchiest tracks I’m Gonna Make You Love Me before moving to a new track titled Getting Older. The brilliant love song Follow from his 2021 solo LP Jump For Joy proved that his well of melodies is still plentiful. A significant part of the set was made up from tracks from Rainy Day Music which remains the bands most succesful album. An abolutely stellar Angelyne proved to be a highlight of the evening.

You get a feeling that Louris would rather let the music do the talking for him but he was graceful enough to share a few anecdotes on the tracks and their making including a recollection of his collaboration with the Dixie Chicks. Save it for a Rainy Day, another great track from Rainy Day Music closed off the show on a strong note.

Gary Louris online: Website / Facebook / Instagram

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