Live Review: The Watts/After August/Cowboy Mouth, The Handlebar, Greenville, South Carolina, December 28, 2006

Loud, proud and unabashedly Southern, New Orleans' Cowboy Mouth brought their unique brand of rowdy rock n' roll revival to about 500 Upstaters last night. These guys, with 11 albums under their belt, are like nothing I've ever seen before.

Opening with a profane version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", they launched into a sweaty, racous and hilarity-filled two hour set that defies description. The singing drummer is like a high-on-life yet agnostic evangelist who sees it as his duty to get you to forget about the world, be cool to your fellow man, and just party, going so far as to walk into the crowd and single out those who he thinks are too uptight for the occasion, including a jockish frat boy in a red shirt who was standing beside me. The other members of the band, one of whom is Ellen DeGeneres' brother, augment the affair with licks and riffage that are in the best traditions of American music.

Trust me on this one ... you just had to be there.

Openers After August were a bunch of local twentysomethings who inserted covers of Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams and Metallica between their own Journey-esque melodic hard rockers, and first band The Watts performed a very strong version of SRV's "Couldn't Stand the Weather" along with other bluesy numbers from the likes of Bonnie Raitt.

Neither of them were able to even touch Cowboy Mouth, though. This is going to be the yardstick I'll use for future club shows well into 2007.

Check them out here.

Individual ratings:

The Watts: 7.75/10
After August: 7.75/10
Cowboy Mouth: 9.5/10

Overall rating: 9.25/10