The small St. Louis venue Blueberry Hill has often been a hot spot for local music and touring bands. Partly due to some great marketing and a strategic location (it's right down the road from Washington University), Blueberry Hill has become both a hang out venue for nearby students and the perfect concert venue for some of the best acts out there, including the legendary Chuck Berry, who tries to make his traditional monthly appearance.
Considering the legendary status of the venue (at least, in the local area), it takes a great act to steal the show, and Bob Schneider and opening act AM certainly exceeded the crowd's expectations. The reasonably priced pitchers of beer helped out as well.
The concert started out with AM, who, despite the smaller and less enthusiastic crowd, outshone Bob Schneider's gig (at least, musically). AM's latest album, Soul Variations, is a nice mix of acoustic rock with a lounge feel, and even though he went solo at the concert, he rocked. He kicked off his forty minute show with "Old Song," an appropriate ballad that puts the focus squarely on his folksy guitar style. The song got the crowd warmed up, even though most of the Bob Schneider fans hadn't shown up yet. On songs like "Stop" and "Endings are Beginnings," AM also brought in some guitar delay effects that outshone his guitar/singer style, and gave the songs a full band feel.
To top it all off, he played "I'm Only Sleeping," the best Beatles cover I've seen live in a while. At that, St. Louis legend Beatle Bob showed up to dance the night away, showing that Blueberry Hill was the place to be in St. Louis that night.
Despite AM's great show, the crowd was still more interested in beer and chatting, and when he tried to talk to the crowd about politics, it didn't get much response. So he finally just said, "Who's getting trashed tonight?" and everyone hooted and hollered.
Of course, that was the perfect transition into the Bob Schneider half of the show, since Schneider's whole shtick revolved around the fan/performer interaction (or, as Schneider called it, his "stage patter").
Touring for his Songs Sung and Played on Guitar at the Same Time album, Schneider kept it low-key, sticking mainly to guitar or piano and without the help of a backing band. As soon as Schneider kicked off with his goofy renditions and songs about sex and booze, the crowd was up and ready for Schneider's antics. Early highlights included Schneider's attempts at playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" on the Trumpet, his jokes about St. Louis, and someone offering him weed ("No thanks, I do not smoke the marijuana, or whatever you kids are calling it these days," Schneider said). The group of college students next to me went back to the bar for their fourth pitcher of beer, and everyone was ready to party.
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