December 25, 1997

Soul Asylum Plays Christmas Show As D, D & K Surprise

Setlist:

Prety Boy Floyd

Closer To The Stars

New World

Never Really Been

String Of Pearls

Somebody To Shove

Eyes Of A Child

Stranger

Ooh La La (Ronnie Lane/Ronnie Wood Faces Song)

In the Twin Cities, any true music fan can tell you that Run Westy Run is the cities' best kept musical secret -- if not the best live band around. Still, any doubts as to how other musicians felt about the Westies were cleared up when Soul Asylum opened for them at a sold-out Christmas night show at Minneapolis's Seventh Street Entry.

Billed only as "D, D & K Surprise" -- figure out this one for yourself -- and listed on the night of the show as "Dope, Dust & Krystal," Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner, Dan Murphy, and Karl Mueller took the stage for a nine song acoustic set. It would be something of an understatement to say the band looked "at home" in a smoky club notably lacking a record label presence, catered food, big hype, or even a poster bearing the band's name. With Mueller and Murphy seated and Pirner -- who seems to be at his musical best when his hair is at its worst -- having one of the worst hair days in Minneapolis history, the trio made their way through the type of loose energetic set that can actually make you feel good about being a Minnesota resident in the middle of winter. Though the band never got around to previewing material from their forthcoming album (they ran out of time), they did manage to hit up a bunch of early tunes including "Never Really Been" and "Closer To The Stars," both from 1986 and 1984's Stranger. The latter, one of the band's earliest songs, received a tongue- in- cheek introduction from Murphy as "A really old one from before you all hated us."

As seems to be a Minneapolis tradition these days, the band was joined part way through their set by ex-Geraldine Fibber Jessy Greene on violin. (Greene's also been seen onstage or in the studio with Golden Smog, O'Jeez, the Jayhawks, and the Westies over the past year.) The quartet rounded out the set with "String Of Pearls," "Somebody To Shove," and "Eyes Of A Child" -- Greene's violin adding an edgy sound to the newer material that the band had previously achieved with only moderate success by adding a cello to their MTV Unplugged show. Closing out their set with a one song encore, Soul Asylum was joined by the Westies' Kraig and Kirk Johnson for a surprise cover of the Faces "Ooh-La-La." According to Mueller, Soul Asylum's new album is do out in March of next year.