David Allen Coe

David Allen Coe show review: July, 2007 (a sample of my 'professional' work)

“Country DJs knows that I’m an outlaw; they’d never come to see me in this dive.”

Those words, from David Allan Coe’s song “Longhaired Redneck,” may as well have applied to his performance, July 11, at rock venue White Rabbit. Country DJs probably weren’t in attendance, but an audience mixed with frat boys, over-the-hill cowboys, and even a few hard rockers was on hand to watch Coe, 66, prove why he’s a dying breed in the land of country outlaws.

When Garth Brooks paraded on stage in the early ‘90s with his rock show gimmick characterized by his use of the wireless headset mike, it seemed easy to side with Waylon Jennings’ view that Brooks was “doing for country music what pantyhose did for finger-fucking.” Now take into consideration Coe, on stage with the same mike strapped around his mouth, but wearing a wig, beard and braids similar to George Clinton of P-Funk fame, playing a guitar emblazoned with the Confederate Flag specially designed for him by Pantera’s late Dimebag Darrell, and sticking both of his middle fingers up in the air.

I’ll never see that mike in the same light again.

Coe started the show off hard with his homage to Hank Williams in “The Ride” and began a 20-song-set medley, never really completing a whole song outside of his self-described favorite greatest hit, “Please Come To Boston.”

Coe is a songwriter (he damn sure lets you know it) and he’s also a talker. He was quick to stop a song to explain the meaning or amusing origin as he did with “Jack Daniel’s, If You Please” which he heard his father say one night when Coe, 11 at the time, went to a bar to retrieve his drunk old man.

One of the stranger moments of the night came when Coe pointed at a fan wearing a GG Allin shirt and solemnly stated, “Allin was a good friend” before proceeding with “If That Ain’t Country.”

Coe also performed a few of his raunchier tunes including “Linda Lovelace” with the chorus, “Well, I've fucked 'em all from coast to coast, cause honey, that's my bag/ I'm the only guy in the world who can make Linda Lovelace gag.”

The second part of the set seemed plagued by sound problems in which Coe’s guitar grew unbearably loud. Even worse, Coe dedicated much of the last half to sharing stories about his pal Kid Rock and singing his songs. Still worse, Coe covered Uncle Kracker’s overplayed cover of Dobie Gray’s song, “Drift Away.” There was no encore and Coe’s last words to the audience were ominously, “I think I’m dying.”

Gordon Blow, 52, waited at Coe’s bus to have a record autographed, but was informed by Coe’s guitar player that he “rode separately.” Blow, a guest DJ at 69.1 WKRP, had seen Coe in San Antonio back in 1978. The biggest difference almost 30 years later?

“It’s louder!” Blow said. “My ears are still ringing. They’ll probably be ringing in the morning.”

But Blow still enjoyed the show and how could he not when Coe introduced himself as a man with a fourth grade education who spent 20 years in Ohio State Penitentiary and had been on Death Row.

You’d better enjoy it…or else.