TVD Live: Mudcrutch at the 9:30 Club, 6/6

PHOTOS: RICHIE DOWNS | It’s interesting to speculate what inspired Tom Petty to go back to his original, unsuccessful Gainesville band. Nostalgia for the old days? A pang of guilt at leaving his buddies behind? Righting the wrongs of a record company that essentially broke up the band? A sudden urge to rekindle old friendships?

Whatever the reason, it’s what got Petty, who could have very easily gone on another big summer amphitheater tour, back into clubs. And what was a onetime reunion in 2008 with a new album and a two-week California promotional club tour has turned into a second album and a more extensive five-week outing. During his lustily received show at the 9:30 Club in Washington Monday, Petty said they might be inspired to stay out even longer.

There is fun to be had playing for audiences close up; maybe even more fun playing with your old buds from decades ago. Whatever the reason, it was a good night to show up and listen. That 60 percent of the dismally named old band Mudcrutch was composed of the ace Heartbreakers Mike Campbell, the ever underrated guitarist, and Benmont Tench, who adds so much soulfulness to his keyboards, practically guarantees quality output.

But there’s no apparent reason anybody ever fired hard-hitting drummer Randall Marsh or guitarist and co-vocalist Tom Leadon from a band. Together, they seemed to have a sweeter, more country-rock footing than the Heartbreakers, along the early ’70s lines of the band of Leadon’s brother Bernie, the Flying Burrito Brothers—not to mention “some other band” Bernie Leadon co-founded but Petty declined to mention by name, the Eagles.

With two full albums from which to draw material, the reconstituted Mudcrutch had enough for a generous, two-hour, 21-song set. And though they play none of the original things they recorded in the ’70s, they do a few of the songs they also covered back in the day to give you a taste of their pedigree and interest.

That included the old Dave Dudley truck driving hit, “Six Days on the Road,” the standard “Shady Grove,” which back in the day had been adopted as a title song to a 1969 Quicksilver Messenger Service album, and especially “Lover of the Bayou.”

The track, which kicked off the Byrds’ 1970 Untitled album pointed the direction to Petty’s further interest in jangle-rock. Live, Petty spits out the Roger McGuinn/Jaques Levy lyrics like the Dylan disciple he was (and colleague he’d become). But the guitar rave up from Leadon and especially Campbell made the song a highlight not only of the first Mudcrutch reunion album in 2008 but the live show Monday.

But another cover they hadn’t recorded but probably also played back in their early gigs was the Dylan staple “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” It was received warmly by the sold out crowd, who, judging from their dance moves probably knew it from the Guns ‘N’ Roses version. It provided the night’s only singalong on an evening when every one of Petty’s dozens of familiar hits were strictly off-limits (even though the original Mudcrutch had taken the first stab at some early Heartbreakers songs, including “Don’t Do Me Like That”).

No, this was the trade-off, as it was when David Bowie deigned to revisit clubs with a new band Tin Machine in the late ’80s and early ’90s, if only fans would forgive him for not singing a single old favorite.

There is an implied democracy to Mudcrutch such that while Petty provided a number of new songs, so did every other member of the band. This can be more polite than practical. Petty, after all can turn out a decent rock song in his sleep—two days after this club show he’d be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, for goodness sake.

Mudcrutch performs at 930 Club in Washington, DC on June 6, 2016 (Photos by Richie Downs).

So asking everyone to contribute is kind of like when Creedence decided to have an album with similar democracy, 1972’s Mardi Gras (only the John Fogerty songs were hits; they broke up soon after).

So, everybody else in Mudcrutch had a lot to live up to. Leadon came closest with his contributions including “Other Side of the Mountain” which addresses the central premise—friends who have drifted apart—on a bluegrass boogie that requires the addition of the one ringer to the band, banjo picking Herb Pedersen, the 72-year-old Southern Californian sideman who has been on dozens of albums from the Dillards to Gram Parsons to Jackson Browne.

As good as it was to see him, mostly strumming acoustic guitar and harmonizing, it seemed to undermine the back to basics intent of Gainesville boys’ reuniting—he was as flashy a tour accoutrement as the two deluxe tour buses out back.

Of the others, the drummer Marsh acquitted himself quite well with a tune that’s apparently getting a lot of airplay, “Beautiful World.” Campbell seemed uncomfortable singing his own “Victim of Circumstance” late in the show. And Tench’s contributions were more in the meta-early rock stuff of Billy Swan with painfully simple “This is a Good Street” and “Welcome to Hell,” that nonetheless went well with the show’s one encore, Jerry Lee Lewis’ “High School Confidential.”

The biggest change in Mudcrutch may not have been the songs though, but the fact that Petty was back playing his original instrument, bass, as Campbell and Leadon traded off guitar leads to elevate the best of the set

With any luck, Mudcrutch’s success may inspire other arena-fillers to call up past bands for old times’ sake. So it may not be too late to dream of a Springsteen swing with a reopened Steel Mill, or McCartney back with the Quarrymen.

Mudcrutch performs at 930 Club in Washington, DC on June 6, 2016 (Photos by Richie Downs).

SET LIST:
Shady Grove
Orphan of the Storm
Six Days On the Road
Scare Easily
Trailer
This is a Good Street
Lover of the Bayou
Beautiful World
Dreams of Flying
Save Your Water
Hungry No More
I Forgive It All
Knocking’ on Heaven’s Door
The Other Side of the Mountain
Hope
Welcome to Hell
Crystal River
Victim of Circumstance
The Wrong Thing to Do
Bootleg Flyer
(encore)
High School Confidential

TVD Live: Mudcrutch
at the 9:30 Club, 6/6

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