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Monday, 17 October 2011 10:42

Written by Scott Mervis

Mark Olson and Gary Louris may or may not have grown up singing in church, but they sure sounded like former choir boys on the altar of Mr. Smalls Sunday night.

The pair are back fronting the Jayhawks, one of the leading lights of the '90s alt-country scene, and touring on the reunion album "Mockingbird Time" (the first with both singers since '95).

Hopefully, the people who packed the room were familiar with the record, because a third of the 21-song set was devoted to "Mockingbird Time." Some of those new songs, like the Byrds-y "She Walks in so Many Ways" and "Closer to Your Side," fit nicely with the classics, while others, like the blander "Stand Out in the Rain" and cliche-ridden "Tiny Arrows" didn't quite rise to the standard.

If your favorite song, for some reason, was "Wichita," you weren't served by having the Jayhawks come out with it. The harmonies were wobbly out of the gate, particularly on the Olson side of the stage. It took a few songs to get things on track, but the throats were cleared and soaring by the time they got to "Nevada California" and the clear crowd favorite "Blue." Part of the magic is the similarity of the two voices, which manage to be both pretty and a little whiny.

While Olson worked the rhythm on acoustic guitar, Louris executed clean, crisp George Harrison-style solos on his Gibson electric. The Jayhawks kept things tight, not straying much from the album versions. One of the jammier songs was the new and slightly awkward "High Water Blues" (appropriate for Millvale), a churning rocker that goes a little '60s psych in the middle with a punk rock surge at the end.

A fitting song for the converted church was a sweet, set-closing cover of "Up Above My Head," an old gospel tune from the '40s, followed by a gentle version of the oft-covered "Love Hurts." Typically, the Jayhawks had been doing four encores, so after playing "Mr. Man" (eh), "Going Back to Tulsa" (sung by drummer Tim O'Reagan, who actually sings a bit like the frontmen) and the upbeat country rocker "She's Not Alone Anymore" (from 1989's "Blue Earth"), it looked like "Waiting for the Sun" would be a casualty. Fortunately, the band closed with their most rousing rocker, which proudly shows off their Neil Young influence.

I remembered seeing the Olson/Louris Jayhawks back in the early '90s at Rosebud and being blown away by both the harmonies and the energy. This one had more of the former than the latter. Yeah, it lacked a little spark -- maybe because it's almost 20 years later, maybe it was just the dreary Sunday night.

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