John Doe and the Sadies - Rumba Cafe

Decked out in a sharp-looking brown suit, John Doe welcomed the Rumba Cafe crowd to a “country-western Sunday jamboree” on Mother’s Day evening. And that’s pretty much what it was, as Doe led his backing band—immensely talented Canadian roots-rockers the Sadies—through a set of songs by country royalty like Johnny Cash, Porter Wagoner, Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard.

Doe got his start back in the late ’70s playing bass and sharing vocal duties in X, one of the most influential and critically celebrated punk bands to come out of Los Angeles. Cult followers of X shouldn’t be too surprised to see Doe leading a country jamboree. X routinely used dashes of country and folk in its punk-rock recipe, and when the band reincarnated briefly as the Knitters (with Dave Alvin on guitar instead of Billy Zoom), it was more Carter Family than the Weirdos. And Doe’s first solo outing, Meet John Doe, cast off all punk leanings for a rootsy vibe.

Fast-forward almost 20 years, and the 55-year-old Doe has finally put out an album of almost entirely classic country songs. Country Club, released last month, pays tribute to the big boys, but Doe’s distaste of melodrama and the Sadies’ fiery musicianship and knack for nostalgic-yet-subversive arrangements allow it to be much more than a cover album.

The live show rose far above any cover-band cliché, as well. The band kicked off the night with Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone,” speeding up Cash’s signature boom-chicka-boom into a rollicking number. Doe’s worn voice was rich as a strong cup of coffee, and it fit this song and all the others perfectly. He joked that his acoustic guitar’s strings were just there to protect the finish, but it still added a nice texture.

The real guitar work, though, came courtesy of brothers Dallas and Travis Good. This was my first time seeing the Sadies live, and good golly can they play their instruments, which made instrumentals like “Sudbury Nickel” just as interesting as the other tunes. (It helped to have a near-perfect sound mix, too.) The brothers’ vocal harmonies also were spot-on; Dallas even took lead on a couple of tunes and showcased a shockingly good baritone.

Everybody on the stage was a showman, too. Doe has had decades to master communicating to a crowd, not to mention dozens of bit parts in movies and TV shows, and the Good brothers played all their parts with panache—even meeting at center stage to play each other’s guitar at one point.

Whatever kind of country floats your boat, John Doe and the Sadies played it, albeit filtered through their own signature sound. There was ’70s Nashville (Tammy Wynette’s “‘Til I Get it Right”), outlaw country (a smoking version of Waylon Jennings’ “Stop the World and Let Me Off” and an ever-so-slightly psychedelic take on Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make it Through the Night”) and Bakersfield honky-tonk (Haggard’s “Are the Good Times Really Over for Good,” with the timely line, “Wish a Ford and a Chevy could still last ten years like they should”).

While Doe mentioned a few different times how disconcerting it was to have the sun shining through the window while the band played (it was an early show), the whole experience was anything but disconcerting. Rather, it was one of the most fun, refreshing shows I’ve seen this year.