Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby in Cincinnati

Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby + Lisa Walker 7-8-09
Southgate House · Newport, KY

BY STEVEN ROSEN

(This first appeared in Blurt Magazine, www.blurt-online.com.)

"I knew there was a reason I've never played Cincinnati before," Wreckless Eric says at the start of his show with Amy Rigby here, peering out at the crowd of...ten, maybe? "But I had to come and verify it."

The crowd estimate of ten actually is a little rosy - it includes the opening act, Lisa Walker, and her partner in the rising Cincinnati band Wussy, Chuck Cleaver; a guest-passed journalist and friend; the sound man; maybe even the bartender. (I lost track trying to count.)

Okay, so British New Wave hero Eric and his American wife Rigby - who has played Cincinnati before - didn't draw well for a barely promoted show at the start of their U.S. tour, in the middle of a recession, in an upstairs parlor room of a sprawling old Newport roadhouse across the river from Cincinnati. On a weekday night with a late start.

The point is that they played phenomenally well, full of spirit and bite and love for what they do best, literately romantic and tuneful, punk-infused folk-rock. After the set was over, with Eric and Rigby rocking and thrashing about on their acoustic and electric guitars (Eric got some nice fuzz tones on his) like Joe Strummer playing with the Byrds, each supporting the other with urgently plaintive harmony singing, the crowd size had actually doubled. (She also played keyboards on some songs.)

The songs were evenly divided among their album from last year, Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby ("Here Comes My Ship," "Another Drive-In Saturday"), his earlier solo material ("Reconnez Cherie," "Take the Cash"), and hers ("Don't Ever Change," a fierce, fiery "Raising the Bar," the magnificently dreamy, masterful "Dancing With Joey Ramone").

Rigby hits 50 this year; Eric (Goulden) is a couple years over. If it seems incongruous they should be playing for such a small crowd at this stage of their careers, it's worth noting they sure don't let disappoint affect their energy levels. They're at their peak as performers - and entertainers. Eric has matured into a kind of gray-haired Bob Hoskins-type - short and a little compact but quick-witted and ready to get in your face with either devilishly corrosive humor, flashes of anger, or tender remembrances.

Before playing his immortal two-chord declarative rocker "Whole Wide World," he tells the audience how he used to play it every night in a band before going solo and releasing it as a Stiff Records single in 1978. "It always felt like a hot summer night whenever I played it," he recalls. "It was often cold and rainy outside, but it felt so hot inside, and it was all right."

He also told about how he felt when he first met Rigby as she performed that same song, in the same club in the same city (Hull) where he first did it. "Here was this woman who looked like Chrissie Hynde and she was playing my song," he says, adding, "Not that I fancied Chrissie Hynde."

The duo also did a terrific set of cover versions - the Byrds' "Ballad of Easy Rider," the Flamin' Groovies' "You Tore Me Down," the Turtles' P.F. Sloan-penned "I Get Out of Breath."

For her part, Rigby was so moved by opening act Walker - who played Wussy songs on acoustic guitar, the strikingly imagistic lyrics all the more vivid because of her vocal clarity - that she addresses the younger performer from the stage: "I thought you sounded so cool, it inspired me. Thank you."

Sitting at a table up front, Walker was touched. It was the first time she had performed some of this material, which included "Motorcycle Song," "Soak It Up," "Crooked" and "Little Paper Birds," solo.

Wussy draws big crowds regionally, as a result of its new self-titled album, so this was just a diversion for her. The small turn-out didn't matter.

As for Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby, the American tour runs through July 28th and hits a lot of East Coast cities where the turnout should improve. If they're as good as they were here, the fans are going to get a great show. I'd travel the whole wide world just to see them.

(srosenone@aol.com)