White Cowbell Oklahoma still rocks even without the fireworks

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White Cowbell Oklahoma baptizes fan Arianna Richardson in Jägermeister. Photo By Richard Amery

If White Cowbell Oklahoma’s hyperactive, entertaining, and usually incendiary southern rock style music was  a pizza  with (their description)  “triple, meat, triple cheese and served in a bowl with a pair of straps  to wrap around your head  like a horse’s feedbag,” the fire and chainsaw show that goes along with it would be the beer you chase it with.

 Even without the fire and the power tool mayhem, the pizza is still tasty, but the beer would have made it that much better.

 

Chainsaw Charlie, who is usually the White Cowbell Oklahoma member who lights things on fire and chainsaws the toilet paper on stage, either got arrested or got sick, whatever the reason, he couldn’t make it to the Toronto rockers’  show at the Slice, Sept . 23, which meant something was lacking.

 

 Which left an enthusiastic  audience, somewhat disappointed but still blown away  by the tight five piece’s big riffs, huge voices, triple guitar harmonies, the pretty girls dancing in front of the stage and their traditional baptism of the audience with Jägermeister. Lucky for them their music stands alone as testosterone fueled, heavy drinking fun.

 They started strong with “Piece of the Action” and blastedWhite Cowbell Oklahoma singer Clem T Clemsen belts it out. Photo by Richard Amery into “Cheerleader,” and had the audience immediately singing along with “Shot a Gambling Man ” “ I shot a gambling man down in Reno, now I’m smoking marijuana  down in ”Mendicino.”

 

 

Some of the audience was getting surly  about the lack of chainsaw, but seemed to have forgiven the band by the end of an almost too short set, which ended just after midnight and included frontman Clem T Clemson  jumping into the crowd and singing on tabletops.

 

They had a lot of boundless energy on stage and musically, they were super tight. Their new drummer “The General” fit right in, keeping the time going throughout with much enthusiasm.

Local band Toques and Beards opened the show with a  tight set of original and energetic  high volume alternative country including a lot of originals and a few obscure covers.

— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor

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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 29 September 2010 16:15 )