Night Moves, Johnny Delaware

Saturday, January 24 Night Moves w/ Johnny Delaware at Grog ShopDoors 7:30 PM | Show 8:30 PMALL AGES$18.50 advance / $23 day of show+ $3 at the door if under 21Bless its battered body, but the Night Moves tour van is a piece of shit. It is your standard-issue blue Ford E-350 now months away from its 25th birthday, the sort of vehicle that occasionally prompts so-called normal folks to give the grimy musicians inside suspect stares. The catalytic converter has been stolen three times, so its now permanently straight-piped; the exhaust leaks through the holes and cracks in the sides, slowly gassing anyone inside. The wheel wells are shambles. And while John Pelant was writing Double Life, Night Moves fourth LP and first in six years, someone swiped the license plates just after he had paid for new tags. God fucking dammit, he remembers thinking. Who the hell steals a license plate? But Pelant soon sublimated his frustration, turning his vision of a thief who had borrowed the plate in order to commit more crimes elsewhere into one of the most winning tunes in Night Moves country-soul-psych-rock catalogue, Daytona. As sun-swept synthesizers and pedal steel curl around stuttering drums, Pelant offers an empathetic portrait of someone doing whatever is necessary to reinvent their lives. Daytona, you only wanted a win, he opens the final verse. Daytona, no chance Ill see you again. Theres irritation in his voice, sure, but mostly theres acceptance, an understanding that he cannot comprehend someone elses difficulties and that he has plenty of his own.