With his deep voice, his impressive physic of a bearded man who, like the mountains, may have seen everything, Jake Smith and his band, a.k.a. The White Bufallo, was opening for Delta Rae at the El Rey on Saturday night. With such a moniker and a 2012 album entitled ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’, they had already announced the color and the sound, but the sound was nevertheless as diverse as captivating.
The first songs sounded like a cross between Pearl Jam – he kind of sounded like Eddie Vedder – and some alt country style, but when they started playing ‘How the West Was Won’, with that whipped horses, train-like stomping rhythm, everybody was thinking, wow, Johnny Cash? Yes, I even heard the two guys behind me, screamed the country legend’s name with enthusiasm, and the trio, consisting of bassist Tommy Andrews and drummer Matt Lynott beside Smith on guitar, was playing it with such a positive energy, with even fighting moves, that I am sure everybody’s head was exploding with happiness.
And let me talk again about this raucous baritone voice, which I believe, has to be heard live to truly appreciate its powerful force of nature’s potential. Well a buffalo is not a weak animal after all, and their performance, which was alternating between rowdy foot-tapping numbers and soothing ballads, was bringing images of open spaces and thunder in the high plains of the wild west. It was badass alt-country, with uplifting Cash-style anthems and nostalgic slow starters soon exploding into raucous bombasts.
Most of the songs sounded part familiar, part adventurous, and were certainly reflecting a raw toughness and a will to survive despite all odds (one of his songs was featured in the TV series ‘Sons of Anarchy’). Even if catching lyrics live is always difficult, it was obvious that there was a lot of storytelling in these songs which talked about pain, death, murder, violence and loss, definitely not light stuff… ‘I wish I was an outlaw/Spend my life kicking ass and takin' names/There would be no love lost/Town to town killin dreams’, he sang in ‘The Pilot’, you get the picture!
The set was quite short as it is always the case for openers, but people definitely wanted more of them. Smith addressed the crowd only a few times, and he did it one time just to throw a ‘What’s up motherfuckers’ in a really caring way.
Now that I think about it, Jake Smith had a physic which could have inspired Jeff Bridges for his character in ‘Crazy Heart’, there was something in him coming from this kind of country legend, which could well be a legend-in-the-making in his case.
