Perhaps it is not surprising, then,that Doe’s set Saturday night at Shank Hall, sponsored by WMSE’s Radio SummerCamp music festivalkudos for another great year, WMSEerscould best bedescribed as “consistent.” Looking like a slightly disheveled Englishprofessor, Doe took to the stage armed only with an acoustic guitar (he wouldgo electric later in the set) and an endearing aura of warmth and humility.It’s hard to dislike Doe, particularly when he was breathing new life into suchtracks as “Fourth of July” (penned by his pal Dave Alvin) and Merle Haggard’s“Silver Wings.” The intimacy that such songs created between performer andaudience was further fostered by Doe’s between-song banter. Doe shared detailson his lifestories about his strange neighbors, his need for a good eighthours of sleep and his thoughts on shopping at Costcothat cast Doe in astrangely domestic light. Doe is clearly not the same man who once sang aboutwaking up and finding strange clumps of hair beside his bed, as he did in X’s“Johnny Hit and Run Paulene.”
And X was definitely the elephant inthe room as Doe played more and more of his solo material. As a big X fan, Iwas disappointed by Doe’s decision to downplay this period of his artisticevolution, and not only because I selfishly wanted to hear songs like “TheWorld’s a Mess; It’s in My Kiss” one more time. Rather it was because I thinksuch songs fit in nicely with Doe’s ever-growing love of country music. Hisnewer material, while paying homage to the genre, struck me as overlysentimental and clichéd. In contrast, I have always thought of X’s original brandof punk as a sort of urban folk expression, the city equivalent of countrymusic. The junkies, alcoholics and other outcasts that populated X’s seminalalbum Los Angeles would have felt right at homein the world that Haggard and others have described so well.
All of this is not to say that thespirit that once drove Doe was missing entirely; it showed up full force in arousing rendition of The Knitters’ “The Call of the Wreckin’ Ball.” Doe wasjoined by show opener Robbie Fulks for this tale of barnyard destruction, andFulks’ intricate guitar picking and well-placed vocal harmonies made the song ajoy to hear. The song may not have the grittiness of Doe’s best material, butit does have a real sense of punk irreverence. And no one seemed happier to hearit than Doe himself.
