The Metal Files

Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ (DnC) are in town on a 2 day stint and that makes me happy.  A band I was in back in the early-to-mid 90s played a handful of their songs and they became a band that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I didn’t get to see them back in those days and the first time seeing them being only 2 years ago during SxSW.

I was surprised to see that they got booked at The Sahara Lounge in Austin’s far east side.  This is a true dive bar in an area that’s starting to gentrify.  I had only driven by the location before last night.  Nothing was clear online as to when the band would start so I showed up at 8PM and parked.  There were only 2 other cars there and I thought to myself that this was going to be a poorly attended show.

The band rolled in a few minutes after I did and I offered to help them load in along with another guy who had arrived early.  This bar is tiny but has a lot of character and a friendly staff.

DnC took the stage at 930 and played for 2.5 hours straight.  Wow.  It was hot in there, too.  The little wall unit ACs just barely took the edge off of the heat, but I was fine with sweating it out with the band.  The band now features Warner Hodges of Jason and the Scorchers fame and is a top notch guitar player.  The rest of the band, including main man Kevin Kinney, sounded great.  DnC has a lot of material and I’m mostly familiar with some of the earlier stuff, but it all sounds like DnC.  Kevin is a great riff writer and lyricist.

All said and done, I think there may have been 50-60 people there, maybe a little more.  It was a very welcoming crowd as well.  They played everything I would’ve wanted to hear except for Smoke.  It was one of my favorites to cover and I love the riff in that one.  After the show I asked Kevin if we’d hear it at Wednesday’s show.  “We’d have to relearn it, mainly me.  I haven’t played that one in a long time.”  Bummer.  That being said, I’ll be at the Wednesday show as well.

rough ‘hood