Homecoming 2009: Heartless Bastards

One of Cincinnati’s greatest music products ever, at least in my generation, the Heartless Bastards, marked their return home with a sold-out show at the Southgate House last night. Although they’ve played a few shows in town this year, the last being at the end of September at the MidPoint Music Festival, based on the crowd’s energy alone you probably would’ve assumed it was their first show in town since front woman Erika Wennerstrom made the move out West to Austin, Texas a couple years ago. It was easily one of the best shows both musically and attendance-wise that I’ve seen at the Southgate House all year long, this alongside shows like Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Peter, Bjorn and John and Sara Watkins, formerly of Nickel Creek. It was also nice for Erika and the revamped Bastards lineup to come back home for one last show of the year.

It certainly has been an amazing year for the band; music critics, blogs and magazines are eating up their latest release, The Mountain, by the spoonful. They played a show last March with The Decemberists at the South by Southwest Festival in their new hometown, did The Late Show with David Letterman, did a stint over the summer as Wilco’s opening act on their tour, and they’ve played just about every one of the country’s biggest and best outdoor music festivals; I saw them open for the legendary Booker T. Jones at this past summer’s Bonnaroo Music Festival.

I lost track of time last night, but if I had to guess, I’d say the Bastards probably played for nearly two hours. While the night seemed to belong to the songs off of The Mountain, and the focus was certainly on a new sound and new guitar player, they did give the fans songs spanning their career, from albums like All This Time and Stairs and Elevators.

But it wasn’t just a great show because of the Heartless Bastards or the crowd’s energy; thanks to the J. Dorsey Blues Revival (recent CEA winners of the Blues category) for starting the night off very strong with Dorsey’s work on the slide guitar and the band’s bluesy, garage rock sound reminiscent of the 70’s. New favorite band in town.

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