The Lexington shows you’ll wish you’d seen: 10 unforgettable intimate musical evenings

Time to downsize. Last week, your friendly neighborhood music critic ’fessed up to being a fossil and served up a list of his favorite arena and large venue concerts from his 40 years of writing with the Herald-Leader.

We conclude the prolonged backwards glance this week with a second list. This one is devoted to more modest sized delights, meaning concerts that played out in clubs, theatres and smaller rooms.

The dynamics of these kinds of performances differ, obviously, from arena outings. They are far more immediate, speaking far more to a direct sense of give and take between artist and audience than with what unfolds in the big rooms.

That said, what struck me once this list was completed was that it quite unintentionally covered 10 shows from 10 different Lexington venues. Over half of them have been gone for some time, underscoring how distinctive the atmospheres of the room are/were and how integral they become to a performance’s overall appeal and thrill factor.

So here is a look some of the finer music from a few of the more intimate concert settings Lexington has hosted over the last four decades. May we get to enjoy these kinds of experiences again very soon.

The English Beat/R.E.M.

April 8, 1983 – University of Kentucky Student Center Ballroom

Mere months before disbanding (the first time), the English Beat uncorked its working class mash-up of rock, reggae, soul and ska. On record, the Beat’s songs were socially slanted reflections of their Birmingham roots. Onstage, though, they exploded with joyous rhythmic and vocal color. Opening was a band no one had heard of (at the tine) – a young quartet out of Athens, Ga., full of dense, séance-like ambience called R.E.M.

Roy Buchanan

August 27, 1985 – Breeding’s

A series of mid ’80s visits renewed Lexington with Buchanan’s monstrous guitar sound. This 1985 date at the New Circle Road location of Breeding’s was the first of the lot. An almost retiring presence onstage, Buchanan’s playing reflected a sweeter language of the blues on his trademark tune, “The Messiah Will Come Again,” but also revved up like a jackhammer when the occasion called for it. Sadly, Buchanan committed suicide in 1988, just as his career was enjoying a renaissance.

The Ramones

January 20, 1989 – Rhinestones

I could be wrong, by my research indicates this was the only show the Ramones ever played in Lexington. It came nearly 15 years after the rest of the country discovered a punk sound that relied more on coarse musical economy than revolt. That the show (one of the band’s last with bassist Dee Dee Ramone) took place at Rhinestones, then a fashionable country hangout, might have seemed odd. Still, the Ramones made it their rock ‘n’ roll homestead for the night

Camper Van Beethoven/Syd Straw

October 15, 1989 – The Wrocklage

This was part of a week-long run of club shows organized by a very young WRFL-FM at the Wrocklage, the favored Short Street hangout for alternative and local acts. Headliner Camper Van Beethoven was great, but the opening set by songstress Straw set the evening ablaze. With a band that included guitarist Dave Alvin and X drummer D.J. Bonebrake, Straw offered a combustible mix of roots, punk and pop smarts.

Lucinda Williams

March 31, 1993 – Kentucky Theatre

In an acoustic duet concert with guitarist Gurf Morlix, Williams introduced a set of raw folk reflections, deeply Southern in narrative “(“Crescent City,” “Pineola”) but enormously worldly in their emotive scope (“Sweet Old World,” “Six Blocks Away”) with a solid blues-informed foundation. This was the first performance in the long-running Troubadour Concert Series.

Alejandro Escovedo

June 27, 1996 – Lynagh’s Music Club

A figurehead song stylist within a fertile Austin, Texas, scene, scovedo made his Lexington debut with a sold-out performance that ran from chamber-like folk works accented by violin and cello to full tilt electric rock ‘n’ roll reflecting an equal interest in glam and punk. It was a fascinating stylistic mash-up, one that led to frequent Lexington concerts over the following two decades.

Old Crow Medicine Show with David Rawlings and Gillian Welch

February 24, 2004 – The Dame

On the very day its breakthrough “O.C.M.S.” album was released, Old Crow Medicine Show played the Main Street stage of The Dame as an unknown. A mix of pre-bluegrass string musicality, Prohibition Era-inspired songs and a tireless performance drive quickly won over skeptics. As a bonus, two pals joined in for the second set – David Rawlings on guitar and folk empress Gillian Welch, the latter playing a stand-up drum kit.

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell

October 18, 2015 – Lexington Opera House

Harris has clocked considerable concert time in Lexington, but no visit was as solemn as this tour-closing performance with one her earliest collaborators, Texas songsmith Rodney Crowell. Nearly four decades had passed since the two played together in Harris’ famed Hot Band, so the sense of camaraderie was very strong as they dug into songs by Gram Parsons, Lucinda Williams, Townes Van Zandt and, of course, Crowell.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

Sept. 17, 2010 – Buster’s

My favorite moment of this thrilling performance was its parting shot. Having exited the stage following a set of vintage flavored, yet hardly antique soul with her Dap-Kings band, the exuberant Miss Jones leaned back in from the stage left curtain to give the audience one final electric smile. That was also the image that stuck with me after hearing of Jones’s death from cancer in 2016 – the profile of a joyous artist madly in love with her music.

John Prine/Amanda Shires with Jason Isbell

June 26, 2015 – Singletary Center for the Arts

Prine’s final Lexington performance was something of a cross-generational lovefest. A very pregnant Shires offered the biggest surprise by playing her entire set with an unannounced accompanist – husband Jason Isbell. The two later bopped in and out of Prine’s set, triggering a series of duets and trio pieces that delighted everyone. Prine beamed. It was like watching former students toasting their favorite professor.