W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

Julien Baker & Torres Live at Mercury Lounge (2024-12-11

I got to see this show at Mercury Lounge last night at Mercury Lounge.  Being on Julien Baker’s mailing list I was lucky enough to score a ticket before they sold out in a matter of minutes.   It was an early show, 6PM doors and 7PM show since there was a previously scheduled show already on tap at the Mercury.  I knew this was going to present a potential problem for me since I was working until around 6 PM in Park Slope. While I did manage to get out a little early, between the normal rush hour traffic between Brooklyn and the lower east side, and the nasty rain I arrived at Mercury around 6:45.  I was surprised to see the room only half full (it would become packed very shortly thereafter).

They came on shortly after 7PM with the full band that they had on Fallon the previous night.  Baker & Torres were however not wearing the Nudie Suits from TV.  They opened with “Sugar In The Tank” with Baker on banjo (the only song which she played it on).  The two women have been friends for well over a decade now and have been toying around, at first jokingly and now quite seriously with doing a collaborative country album for the better part of five years now.  Throughout covid, they would send each other songs to work on and they started recording last year in both TX and NYC.  This obviously was their first live show and they were both quite nervous about it.

They ended up playing all new material along with some covers (of which George Straight’s “Carrying Your Love With Me” was an absolute homerun with Torres on lead vocals and Julien on harmonies).  Before I go any further, let me just say that Julien’s singing of harmonies throughout the evening was off the charts beautiful.  Sure her vocals when singing lead were great but her harmonies..<chef kiss>.  and while I’m passing along superlatives, unfortunately my position on stage right didn’t allow me much of a view of pedal steel player, J.B. Bohanon (is he related to Marty and Matt?) but let me tell you, as a pedal steel sucker to begin with, his playing was spot on and just the right accompaniment for the damned fine country ditties that these two women were putting forth.

One of Baker’s songs, “Tape Runs Out” was a slow dirgie kind of tune which Julien mashed into “Farewell Transmission” with its shouting exclamation of “LISTEN” to finish the song off with.  They’d go on to say afterwards that after the song was written that they realised that they’d just copied the Jason Molina song, so why not just mash the two together.  At least in a live setting, it worked quite well.  I’ll be curious if the LP version does the same.

I couldn’t say if the two alternated songs one for one, but for the most part it seemed like they certainly had an equal amount of time sharing lead vs harmonies.  And as far as the actual songs go, they were really good.  I mean REALLY good.  Having heard what I have to believe is just about the entire album last night, I have to say that it’s already my most highly anticipated disc of 2025(?) and a most certain top 10 finisher at that.  I did ask when we could expect it to be released and I got a snicker and a non responsive “yeah” as an answer.  That and the fact that “Sugar” isn’t even on any of the streaming sites yet leads me to believe that it might be a while…or it might be this Friday, who knows?  What I can say is that this collaboration works and it works HARD.  Don’t miss them next year when they’re making the rounds for real.

Slideshow

Setlist

Sugar In The Tank

Bottle

Dirt

Off The Wagon

The Only Marble I’ve Got Left

Tuesday

Carryin’ Your Love With Me

Sylvia

No Desert Flower

Tape Runs Out

Downhill Both Ways

Something Like That

Goodbye Baby