Perfect Timing…
Alone on stage with the Baxendale Cooleybird and an assortment of instruments(including a banjo) Cooley played his first solo show last night in over seven years. With fans tuned in from all over courtesy of an amazing sounding stream from Team Dirty South more folks than just those lucky enough to be at the Workplay Theater in Birmingham got to experience last night’s show. There were no goat fucking jokes but man were there some songs followed up with even more songs. In other words just exactly perfect. There was a pin drop quiet Space City and Cooley talking about driving to the show in his mini-van that was all decorated for Christmas with Antlers. To the tune of Big Iron by Marty Robbins Cooley then crooned “with Antlers on his van.” Check out the video for yourself. If that guitar playing songwriting stuff doesn’t pan out the man could make it doing stand up. In addition to solo acoustic performances of some of the best songs written in the last ten plus years another notable moment was an extrapolation of Someone Like You By Adele(!) at the end of Marry Me . Cooley said it “was something he wrote in the 80’s“.Putting an exclamation point on the night was a where the fuck did that come from take on a song everyone in the whole world had forgotten about except Cooley. Yes he really did play Rough Boy by ZZ Top ,the song from their 1985 reeking Afterburner record that had the space shuttle thing from Space 1999 in the video and it turns out there’s a pretty good song hidden in there.
Mike Cooley, Workplay Theater Birmingham,AL
72,Perfect Timing,Ghost to Most,Guitar Man Upstairs,3 Dimes Down,Women Without Whisky,When The Pin Hits The Shell,
Get Downtown,Panties In Your Purse,Eyes Like Glue,Self Destructive Zones,Space City,Bob,Where The Devil Don’t Stay,
Gravity’s Gone,Cottonseed (on banjo),Carl Perkin’s Cadillac,Pulaski, TN,Shut Your Mouth and Get Your Ass on the Plane,
Uncle Frank,Birthday Boy,Marry Me->Someone Like You
Encore:Zip City,Love Like This,Rough Boy
Big thanks to Gordon Wilson and Martin Medley of Team Dirty South for the pictures,the stream,and the killer recordings. Way to get it done y’all.
Download: Mike Cooley Workplay Theater,Birmingham,AL 12/20/11
Download: Mike Cooley Workplay Theater,Birmingham,AL 12/21/11
