ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO: Bullingdon Arms, Oxford, 24/06/10

A good friend recently got hold of some tickets to see Alejandro Escovedo at the Bullingdon Arms in Oxford. Escovedo is from Austin, Texas; he writes and performs a mixture of Tex-Mex blues and Springsteen-influenced rock, sometimes acoustically and sometimes, as at The Bullingdon, with his band "The Sensitive Boys". He has an interesting biography, of which there is a summary on wikipedia.

Arriving a little late at the gig we missed the opening one or two numbers, but heard an excellent performance of the slow and moody"Fort Worth Blue", then "Down In The Bowery", both from his "Street Songs Of Love" album. The latter song was apparently inspired by a meeting with Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen in a New York hotel lift. This was followed by a few upbeat numbers which I failed to identify.

As a venue The Bullingdon Arms does pretty well in booking a variety of artists, but fails pretty miserably to provide decent beer. Overcome by thirst my friends and I retired to a nearby pub offering real ale, then returned to miss the end of the band's fairly brief set. If any readers are able to do a better job of reviewing any of Escovedo's performances I will glady publish them here. In the meantime I have compiled a playlist of my favourite tracks on spotify here.