Oh Cracker Where art Thou?

Fort Worth, Texas? Surprisingly yes. In the six day period that I am visiting this fair city to catch up with my pal Dwight, Cracker was playing here. Well actually it was only Dave Lowery and John Hickmann, advertised as Cracker Unplugged. So you can imagine my excitement when I found this information on their myspace webpage. It turns out this show wasnt advertised much anywhere else, it was somewhat off the radar.

The tickets were 20 dollars at the door, and the place was a shithole. It was a little venue called Aardvarks near TCU in Fort Worth. It was kindof like an old garage with a stage on one side and a bar on the other side. It was smaller then every venue I have ever seen Candid at, and the crowd was smaller then any Candid crowd I have ever seen. There were, at the most, 50 people there. This made the show even cooler.

Dwight and I arrived extremely early cause we had read the doors opened at 8 30. We got there around 8, bought our tickets and went to another bar down the street to have a beer. There we watched a cover band play some old Stones tunes and such. We actually ended up talking to the Bass player and his girlfriend at the Cracker show later on.

After we had a beer, we headed back to Aardvarks to settle in for the show. Little did we know that there were two opening bands, and Cracker didnt go on until around midnight. I suppose we should have seen that coming. Either way, we were just chilling with our beers and listening to some crappy no name openers. I could have got the crowd more into it with Wilco covers and whatnot, because it was a strictly Cracker fanatic crowd.

Eventually Hickmann took the stage and played a couple songs off of his new solo album, and then Dave come up for the rest. It was superb. They played a lot of fan favorites, and you could tell cause everyone would jump out of their seats when it was a song they recognized. "Low" got the biggest reaction, which was only because "Teen Angst" was a slowed down version. And of course who doesnt love "Eurotrash Girl". They combined these Cracker classics with Camper songs such as "All Her Favorite Fruit", "That Gum You Like is Back in Style", and even "Take the Skinheads Bowling"...It was a great show for me to have gone to, I couldnt have been more pleased with the song selection, not too mention the double encore.

I even got to "meet" David Lowery. Like I said it was a real intimate setting, small bar, and few people. So the opportunity was there. I didnt really want to be one of those annoying fans, especially because everyone in a cowboy hat was approaching him. And there were a lot of people in cowboy hats, I mean we were in Texas. And you could tell Lowery wasnt really interested in what anyone had to say, he just wanted to pack up his gear and do his next thing. But I couldnt just not do anything, so I approached him, shook his hand, and said "Im happy to finally meet someone who enjoys Pootie Tang as much as myself." He laughed and I told him he played a great set and I was on my way.

On a side note, one of the crazy cowboy hat wearing dudes was telling me how Cracker was the best band of our time. I didnt really have an argument for this, I mean he did tell me at the Urinals. I was caught off guard. Then he said "Although it would have been cool to see what Alice and Chains could have done". Which I responded with "Welp, that ends that discussion". But either way, I think Cracker would be pretty high up on my list of best bands since, say, the late eighties or early nineties. They are a great band, no arguments there.