It was a big Monday night in Savannah with Blitzen Trapper, fresh off their performance at Shaky Knees Festival in Atlanta, playing at The Jinx.
The Portland-based band was founded 14 years but had never played Savannah before, so no surprise that the club sold out even on a notoriously difficult night to get Savannahians out. Even diehard fans who expected a great show were raving about the 90-minute set, which included a beautiful mix of older work, newer work, and a handful of covers, including Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On”. You can see the set list in one of the photos below.
And if Blitzen Trapper wasn’t enough for a Monday, The Train Wrecks — one of the top bands in Savannah — opened. A brilliant choice by the folks at Savannah Stopover/MusicFile Productions who booked the show.
The lighting was good, but the only white light was in the front center of the stage. The sides and rear had a lot of red, with doses of blue here and there. So when Blitzen Trapper took the stage, the guys with reddish hair were in red light (one of them also wearing red and sitting against The Jinx’s red curtain) and the guy in a blue shirt was bathed in blue light. (Drummers of the world, if you want better photos of yourselves, you need to demand a spotlight of your own, like this guy.) So the photos feel a little freaky, but, hey, you work with what you’ve got. And Blitzen Trapper was so good I would have been happy to listen to them in the dark.
By the way, like so many bands that often play large venues, Blitzen Trapper seemed to relish the bar gig at The Jinx, although guitarist Erik Menteer did look around at the decor and note, “I feel like I’m in the middle of every horror movie that I’ve ever seen.”
First, a couple here of The Train Wrecks and more of both bands after the jump:
Blitzen Trapper:
