The North Mississippi All Stars

January 25, 2001

The Magic Bag

Ferndale, MI

The North Mississippi All Stars pulled into the Detroit area last night for one of the loudest and rowdiest shows I have seen in recent memory. They managed to turn the Magic Bag in suburban Ferndale into an authentic juke joint for a night. The All Stars have played the area before, opening for bands like Galactic and Govt Mule, but as far as I know this is their first headlining tour. The Magic Bag was absolutely packed wall to wall with people, which is a testament to the buzz surrounding their live shows. This was my third time seeing the band in under a year, but I was still very excited about another chance to see them.

I arrived and grabbed a great seat along the rail overlooking the small dance floor. The hall filled up fast and soon the opening band, Motherbird, took the stage. Motherbird are a 4-piece band from Lansing who played lively blues rock with a very heavy edge. The band was pretty young, but they all looked like they walked out of a time machine that had arrived from 1973. Overall their set was enjoyable. Their front man is a good singer and can play some mean harmonica too.

After a short break that I spent learning about the merits of Black Sabbath’s first album from my new friend Mark, the All Stars took the stage. They were performing as a three-piece with only the Dickinson brothers and bassist Chris Chew. They were all business this night and started into a medley of tunes that didn’t stop for quite a long time. Most of the set was practically one big song. Familiar staples like Willie Dixon’s "My Babe" were peppered with lines and verses of other songs like, "I’m in Jail" and "Study War No More".

During a spirited version of "Freedom Highway" several dancers hopped on stage and began to twirl around between the band members. The bouncers had quite a difficult time removing the dancers from the stage and the band was very amused by their attempts. This event seemed to spark the capacity crowd into an even higher, blissful, dancing frenzy than before. The energy in the hall was pretty amazing. The All Stars play good old fashioned, dirty, spittin’, cussin’, dancin’, cheatin’, lyin’, lovin’ blues music and the crowd seemed to be really losing themselves in all of these aspects of the show.

Luther Dickinson seems to me to be a real guitar hero in the making. He laid down dirty, bluesy leads all night, but also was able to invoke the spirits of past heroes like Cream era Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, and early Jerry Garcia. Chris Chew, their huge bass player was once again amazing and his back up and sometimes lead vocals really added to the songs. Drummer Cody Dickinson was incredibly tight and agile behind the drum kit. He also sang his signature song, "Casey Jones/On the Road Again"

The band played for two plus hours and finally finished up with two encores of "All Night Long" and then "Shake Your Money Maker". The crowd was tired and hot by the end of the show and I got the feeling that in the frenzy of dancing and drinking that relationships had been made and also broken during the epic set.

For me the show reinforced why I think that these guys are one of the hottest young bands out there. Their CD, "Shake Hand with Shorty" is great, but it doesn’t capture the full intensity of their live shows. The band only seems to get better every time I see them