The dB's

Photo by John Anderson

The dB's

Someone at South by Southwest has a cruel sense of humor. B.D. Riley's, regularly an Irish pub and sports bar on Sixth Street, paid little respect to the dB's or the fact that the original foursome is having a go of it after 30 years. For its part, the band didn't seem to mind, barreling through a set of mostly new songs from Falling Off the Sky, officially due out in June. It wasn't exactly the original foursome either, with old friend from North Carolina and former Let's Active leader Mitch Easter sitting in on bass and Fred Harris on keyboards. Most of the new material recalled the band's earlier days; "Before You Were Born" was like the Beatles circa Rubber Soul. Some of the music's nuances were lost to the bar's walls, especially on psychedelic "The Adventures of Albatross and Doggerel." Speaking of the Fab Four, a re-creation of the hypnotic "Tomorrow Never Knows" was spot-on. The hardcore assembled thrilled to Peter Holsapple hitting the high notes on "Love Is for Lovers," and Chris Stamey's set closing "Neverland" was spine-tingling and earned a rare SXSW encore, the spunky and obscure "If and When," a song off the dB's debut single from 1978.