Ponte Vedra Concert Hall, in partnership with Flying Saucer Presents, announced that pioneering alt-country rock group Old 97’s will return to the stage on Friday, Oct. 1, for a full-capacity performance.
In 1996, Old 97’s recorded “Too Far to Care.” It was their major-label debut — following two independent releases and a year-long bidding war, the Dallas-based quartet had signed with Elektra Records. But rather than venture into some state-of-the-art studio in New York or L.A., the band decamped to Village Productions in Tornillo, Texas — a remote facility in the middle of two thousand acres of pecan trees near the Mexican border, with a mixing board acquired from an engineer who had worked on some of Queen’s albums. Now, more than 20 years later, they have returned to record their eleventh studio album, “Graveyard Whistling.”
“‘Too Far To Care’ is the sound that best defined us,” said Rhett Miller, lead singer and primary songwriter. “It was a really magical time, and we go back to it a lot in our collective memory.”
And so when it came time for the band, which still consists of the same four members — Miller, guitarist Ken Bethea, bassist Murry Hammond, and drummer Philip Peeples — to record their newest endeavor, producer Vance Powell brought up the idea of returning to Tornillo.
“We knew instantly that it was the perfect move,” Miller said. “We weren’t trying to remake ‘Too Far to Care,’ but to make something where fans would say, ‘This band hasn’t lost a step in twenty-some years.’”
The result is the 11 songs of “Graveyard Whistling,” from a group that has earned the respect and veneration as one of the pioneers of the alt-country movement, while still retaining the raucous energy, cleverness and knockabout spirit that first distinguished them from the pack. The record comes out blazing with the breakneck shuffle of “I Don’t Want to Die in This Town” (based on a possibly apocryphal quote from Frank Sinatra), and maintaining that feverish intensity even when the tempo drops on songs like the more contemplative “All Who Wander.” Echoes of such barroom saints as the Replacements and the Pogues appear on sing-alongs “Bad Luck Charm” and “Irish Whiskey Pretty Girls,” but bigger and more mature issues simmer underneath the steamroller swing.
Tickets for the Old 97’s are available at The St. Augustine Amphitheatre box office or Ticketmaster.com. The Ponte Vedra Concert Hall box office remains closed at this time. All tickets are digital. The St. Augustine Amphitheatre box office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays and from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturdays, and will only accept payment via debit or credit card.
