Blue Bayou

Sonny Landreth Band and Eugene Edwards. At the Lobero Theatre,
Saturday, November 18.

Reviewed by Charles Donelan

Subscribers to Sings Like Hell expect
nothing less than the best from programmer Peggy Jones, and she
delivered with this double bill, offering two underground
sensations at different but complementary stages of their
respective careers. Eugene Edwards is no kid, but his quirky power
pop (think Alex Chilton or, if you want to get all Jack Black in
High Fidelity about it, Brinsley Schwarz) is as expressive of youth
as anything since the heyday of “What I Like About You.” Edwards
and rhythm guitarist John Hoskinson showed a mastery of the twin
guitar approach and stop-time theatrics on numbers such as the
title track from Edwards’s 2005 album My Favorite Revolution.

While his onstage shtick can become silly at times — a medley of
guitar effects trotted out as an encore didn’t entirely
work — Edwards earned the two-legged classic rock leap in the air
he gave to celebrate the end of his set, and the audience loved
him.