The Lemonheads @ Lucinda's, New York, NY 1/21/26

Bill: The Lemonheads

Venue: Lucinda's, 169 Ave A, New York, NY

Date: 1/21/26

Door: Free

7pm The Lemonheads

Active: 1986 (Boston, MA)

Latest Release: Love Chant (Fire, 2025)

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In recent decades The Lemonheads would be something I'd blow off, but they/Evan Dando were doing a free acoustic gigs at Lucinda Williams new bar, so I figured what the hell, I didn't see Lucinda herself playing there a few days ago, so maybe I'd check it out.

I knew it was a dice roll since Ticketweb gave out free advance tickets that weren't tickets at all, just something for the club to gauge how many people were coming.   "RSVP" in NYC parlance.   I think it was a little too much to do it this way because the overage wasn't "that" much.  Better to just cram people in, tell them it is sold out and let the bar sell drinks than making people stand a hour, let people in in dribs and drabs and hold tons of space for phantom people on the guest list with only 150 capacity.  If you get shut out, you know to not freeze your ass off and do something else that way.  

There was a line around the corner when I got there at 5:20 or so.  They were supposed to start letting people in at 5 but that turned into more like 6:15 or so.  My plan of avoid standing out in the cold as little as possible turned into standing in that line for an hour only to be 7 people away at 6:45 when then held people back for guest list spaces.   This meant standing there another half hour while models, kids that would go in and out for a smoke and Evan himself with people on his bus would go in while being so close and yet so far which someone with a clipboard in one hand was busily sending and receiving texts on her phone.  About 7:15 they moved 10 more people from the line into the roped line in from of the club including me.  So close!  Normally I would have just left but it seemed like getting in was highly likely, so at this point it was a grudge match between avoiding standing out in the freezing cold when I explicitly tried to avoid standing out in the cold even if I just missed the show to sticking with the two hours I already put into waiting simply because I was there.  I was gonna leave with something to write about even if I collapsed of hypothermia damn it.

There was a video screen I could see through the window at the bar and people from the end of the line started hanging by the window to watch the show.  I could hear the alternahits like "It's A Shame About Ray" and "My Drug Buddy" outside while a girl behind me interrupted her annoying conversation with even more annoying singing along with a glimpse of the band on a distant screen and watch attendees take a smoke break.  A few more people (3) got let in from the line and one guy in front of me had enough and left, so it was down to 2 people ahead of me as I could hear Evan kick into my favorite Gram Parsons song "Return of the Grevious Angel."  Then he went into "Working Class Hero" from my favorite John Lennon album.  Finally, they decided to let 10 more people in so I could go in to see there was more than enough real space to support the rest of the people that were outside, but I didn't care about seeing Evan or his sloppy solo acoustic covers, I was just glad to be warm after 2 1/2 hours of torture.  Evan then kicked into my favorite Cheap Trick song "He's A Whore" and I remembered that Evan tends to cover my absolute favorites remembering many many years ago he did "You Ain't Going Nowhere" by Dylan in the same manner back when I last saw him in the early early pre-modeling years early '90's but after seeing the Lemonheads open for the Angry Samoans in 1987.

Anyway he did a Dinosaur cover from Green Mind and some other things by himself as I enjoyed a room with a functional heating system.  Somebody had some kind of medical issue off to the side and Evan made light of the situation including a great mimick of a seizure, then some people cleared out leaving a tempting space pocket to the side of a nice leaning post I found.  The show ended and I ran into my music buddy Eric so we decided to go over to Beauty Bar.  As we started to walk over there, I noticed Evan talking to some people outside and had a flashback memory of a road trip I took with Red Bliss to see the Lemonheads in Providence at the Rocket in like 1989 and Evan hung out with us in Carreiro's van or car or something to shoot the shit.   Maybe there was a case of Old Mill to share.   This is a very blurry memory, but I didn't think it was worth stopping my stride to interrupt Mr. Dando.  I had nothing to say that was that level of interruption even if there is some Massachusetts lineage.  You'd have to be talking in stride to have anything to say and you gotta watch those point of connection cuz there are a dozen of them I'm sure.  I would've had a couple more sentences of something else to write about but I hate to orbit people unless I have something crucial to say.

I guess now I'd kind of like to see a casual "normal" show like the one I blew off at the White Eagle in Jersey City that Eric went to a few months back.  He got in line at 5:05 which was early enough to get in before the show started, so that 15 minutes cost me dearly.  Knowing that venue, I know I could've casually gone to the front of the bar, had a great vantage point and leaning post without 2 1/2 hours of standing out in the cold, but that would have been for a price versus free and a much longer commute.  Eric thought the free show was better than the paid one so there you go.

I thought there was a fine line between "loose" and "slop" for Evan solo acoustic.  I like my sloppy punk rock fine, but I was kinda feeling like "clean it up dude!"  Whoever was complaining about Richard Lloyd not being very tight last night would've had a coronary if they saw this.  That said, I found him endearing enough to want to see him again in a normal setting, so I guess that is part of the charm.

FOR FURTHER REVIEW:

Lucinda Williams @ Northwell at Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, NY 8/1/25

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