Liberty
Lunch and Me
Liberty
Lunch is no more. I started going to live
music in Austin in the early seventies at Armadillo World Headquarters,
Soap Creek Saloon, Castle Creek, the Texas Tavern, Rome Inn, and the
early
Antone's locations. After the demise of the Armadillo, Liberty
Lunch
was always my #1 Austin music venue. From the first show I
saw
at Liberty Lunch, which was probably the Lotions or Beto y los
Fairlanes,
to the last few weeks, including the Gloriathon, Joe Ely, and the final
show headlined by The Toadies, I listened to incredibly diverse music,
ranging from reggae to rock to blues to punk to totally
unclassifiable.
The music, the murals, the open air feel, the mellow crowds -- all of
that
made Liberty Lunch. Although there will be plenty of
great
music at other Austin clubs, I don't think it will ever top the music
and
atmosphere
at the Lunch in the 80's and '90's.
-- Buck Granite |
My Favorite
Liberty
Lunch Shows
15) Morphine
(3/22/97)
14)
Warren
Zevon (7/22/94)
13)
Hot
Tuna (2/20/91)
12)
J.J.
Cale (2/6/88)
11)
Mojo
Nixon & Skid
Roper - sometime in the mid-eighties
10)
The
Heads (10/17/96)
9) Southern
Culture on the Skids (11/14/96, 2/10/98, 11/4/98)
8) The
Radiators (many times)
7)
Innumerable Reggae
shows, including Toots, The
Meditations, Culture,
Israel
Vibration, Steel
Pulse, & Lucky
Dube
6) The
Skatalites - (4/27/95, 7/7/97, and 8/27/98)
5) King
Sunny Ade (10/1/89) & Chief
Commander Ebenezer Obey (5/10/86)
4) Joe
Ely, especially when he recorded "Live at Liberty Lunch", April 21
& 22, 1989
3) The
(Funky) Meters, many times, but especially when Bonnie
Raitt joined them for a set
2) Burning
Spear - numerous times, between 1985 and 1998.
1) The
Neville Brothers - over a dozen times between June, 1985 and June,
1991 |
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Some Of
the
Bands I
Saw at Liberty
Lunch (A-Z)
King Sunny Ade
Asleep
at the
Wheel
Bad
Mutha Goose
Beto
y
Los
Fairlanes
The
Bobs
Brave
Combo
Roy
Buchanan
Burning
Spear
Butthole
Surfers
J.J.
Cale
Guy
Clark
Johnny
Clegg
Cowboy
Junkies
Culture
Dead
Kennedies
Dan
Del
Santo
Doctor's
Mob
Joe
Ely |
Extreme
Heat
Steve
Forbert
David
Garza
Jimmie
Dale
Gilmour
Greezy
Wheels
Butch
Hancock
Richie
Havens
The
Heads
Hot
Tuna
Israel
Vibration
The
Itals
I-Tex
and
the
Frontier
Dub Boys
The
Killer Bees
Killbilly
David
Lindley
The
Lotions
Lucky
Dube |
Thomas
Mapfuno
McGarrigle
Sisters
The
Meditations
The
(Funky)
Meters
The
Mighty
Diamonds
Morphine
Judy
Mowatt
Neville
Brothers
Mojo
Nixon and
Skid
Roper
Chief
Ebenezer
Obey
Pressure
Queen
Ida
Radiators
Roots
Radics
The
Reivers
Jonathon
Richman
Leon
Russell |
Michelle
Shocked
The
Skatalites
Sly
&
Robbie
Darden
Smith
Southern
Culture
on the
Skids
Steel
Pulse
Sun
Ra
Timbuk
3
The
Toadies
Toots
and the
Maytals
The
Tragically
Hip
The
Uranium
Savages
The
Wailers
Miss
Xanna
Don't
&
the Wanted
Jesse
Colin
Young
Warren
Zevon |
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My
Most
Memorable Night
at Liberty Lunch
| My most
memorable night
at Liberty Lunch was a Neville Brothers show on October 18, 1985.
Every Neville Brothers show in those days was fantastic, with their
wonderful
combination of New Orleans funk, second line rhythms, great vocals
including
the amazing voice of Aaron Neville, Charles' hot sax playing, Art's
fine
keyboard work, Brian Stolz's sizzling guitar, and the solid rhythms of
Darryl Johnson on bass and "Mean Mean" Wille Green on drums.
Although
I saw at least a dozen Neville's shows at the Lunch between 1985 and
1991,
what made this one stand out was that I was able to go back stage
between
sets, give the Neville Brothers some of my Ultimate team's tie-dye
shirts,
and see them come out wearing our tie-dyes during a spectacular second
set. This all happened because my Ultimate Frisbee team would
always
show up as a group at the Neville Brothers shows along with the Austin
women's team, "The Supremes". We would all crowd at the front of
the stage -- usually about ten to fifteen of us -- dressed in our team
uniforms, which were brightly colored tie-dyes with our name,
"The
Ether Bunnies" printed on them. (Tie-dyes actually weren't seen
that
commonly at the time except on Deadheads -- this was a few years before
you started seeing tie-dyes in the shopping malls. Ours were made
by a woman named Nan who had learned the technique at "The Farm" in
Tennessee,
where the ultra-bright "Grateful Dead" tie-dyes originated.)
Anyway,
what happened was that in between songs during the first set, one of
the
Nevilles (probably Charles) leaned over to us and said, "Hey, can we
get
some of those tie-dyes?". So I, being the one on the team that
procured
and distributed the shirts for the team, said "no problem!". I
left
shortly before the set ended, and drove home to pick up four of our
Ether
Bunny tie-dye shirts. When I got back to the Lunch, they were on
their break, so I and another member of the team, Vinny went to the
stage,
explained what had happened, and then were taken backstage. We
were
able to give the shirts to Charles and Art, and to talk to them for a
few
minutes. We told them about the Ether Bunnies and Ultimate
Frisbee
and how much we loved their shows. I don't remember much of what
they said, other than thanking us and telling us how much they liked
the
shirts. As we left, they handed us the business card (which I
still
have) of their manager, Pamela Gibbons, and said that if we called her
or wrote her a letter, she would send us four Neville Brothers shirts
(which
were not being sold on their tours at the time), in exchange for the
four
we gave them.
So
after we
went back to
join our gang in front of the stage, Cyril and Charles came out for
their
set out wearing our tie-dyes. The rest of the story was described
in the review in the November
1, 1985
edition of
the Austin Chronicle, which happened to be the one with the famous Rollo Banks Dia de los Muertos
cover.
In the review by Greg Stephens, he said that although he had found
previous
Neville's shows to be a "religious experience", during the first set,
they
were "just a very good second line band....but the second set was
magical".
My favorite line from the review was, "Cyril and Charles changed into
'Ether
Bunnies' t-shirts during the break, and both played like men
possessed."
I especially like the way he threw in the part about our t-shirts as if
everyone in Austin knew what Ether Bunnies t-shirts were. But in
any case, the shirts must have worked for them, because the second set
that night was one of the best I can remember. One thing the
review
did not mention that I remember vividly was that when the band came
back
out for their encore, Aaron had also put on one of our shirts, which on
him was skin tight and stretched to the bursting point by his pumped-up
physique. Aaron thanked the "Easter" Bunnies for the shirts
before
going into his version of "Amazing Grace" which always closes their
shows.
It was an amazing ending to a great evening.
They
never
did send us those
Neville Brothers shirts, not that it really matters. But, if
Pamela
Gibbons or whomever is managing the Neville Brothers these days happens
to hear about this, it wouldn't be bad if they sent us some shirts.
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