If you want larger than life then look no further than JD
Wilkes.
Off stage he’s allegedly a mild mannered gentleman, but on
stage he is anything but. Plucking pubic hair (his own) and casting it into the
audience, relentlessly displaying tourette styled ticks, gurning and contorting
his body into pretzel shapes are all par for the course when attending a
Legendary Shack Shakers gig. The man is a combination of sweat, spit, and angels
and demons fighting for control.
And more power to him.
It may well all be an act, but he plays it to the hilt. The
stage persona is as real as you can get to lunacy unleashed, and unlike the Victorians
who would simply gape at the madman, we get to sing and dance along with him
and his band.
That this show was billed as an acoustic affair was
something that wouldn’t neatly lodge in my head though.
It kept slipping out and I’d have to pick it up, look at
this strange little thing, and then I’d shrug and try and pop it back in.
It was messing with me and I didn’t like it.
And up until the day of the gig I was actually in two minds
about going.
That is until a random message from a friend asking if I fancied
it tipped the balance of the scales from a maybe to a why the hell not, and I’m
glad it did because ultimately it wasn’t really an acoustic show at all.
My perception of what it would be, and what it was, had
nothing in common at all.
Rather than an acoustic guitar strumming snorefest facsimile
of what I had experienced at Shack Shakers gigs before, it was a stripped back set up that featured a
basic drum set up, a double bass, and an electric guitar that more than delivered.
Throw in JD and his harmonica, and a guest appearance of a
fiddle, and the juke joint on moonshine angle on entertaining was well covered.
In hindsight I’m comfortable in saying that energy wise you
can’t differentiate between a full blown Shack Shakers set and this version of
it.
In the aftermath of a show I’ve often pondered where the
band would sit most comfortably. Sonically speaking that is. And it has come to
me that they exist in that moment when the party peaks. When the drink has
worked its inhibition magic and the madness is in full flow, but also in that
moment just before the darkness slips in and fucks everything up.
You can smell the danger in the air and it’s intoxicating,
but the violence and blood hasn’t arrived yet. It’s a good time; a moment that rests
on the cusp, but the real deal never lasts long while these guys can stretch the
feeling of that moment out over a much longer period by tightly controlling it.
They work on the premise that it has to sound like the train
is about to jump the tracks, and if it doesn’t then what is the point.
It’s an illusion, but a damn fine one to get lost in as most
of us will admit that the feeling of living on the edge is thrilling, but the reality
carries a cost that is often too much to pay. This is why we gravitate towards the rollercoaster
at the fair and throw ourselves into night long marathons of horrors movies. We
want the thrill without the cost, and JD Wilkes and the Shack Shakers deliver that
very same thing. The pretence of danger without the burden of having to live with
the consequences, and that’s what makes it so fuckin good.
It’s a best of both worlds
scenario and they know it.
Next time let’s all see how near the edge we can get.
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