Review and video by Joel Patterson
The thing that makes Chandler Travis one of the archetypal showmen and performers of our age is not only his outlandish, swaggering humor. That’s the hook, I think… that’s what people mention and remember, the hysterically funny, outrageous wisecracks.
What really ropes you in is the awesomely courageous and gentle way he explores human emotion. All his many love songs are at the heart of it all meditations on this theme – not sentimental wishy-washy fantasies of imaginary happiness, but site specific stories of two way streets, cul-de-sacs and dead ends. It’s honest in confronting the tragic aspects, as well as the delirious joys, of falling in, out of and sideways in love.
Here he brings his quartet – naturally named Three-0 – to Saratoga Springs’ legendary Caffe Lena last Friday night. Opener was the master of solo electric guitar and sheer stream-of-consciousness poetic intensity Pete LaBonne.
NOTE: The Chandler Travis Three-O returns to Nippertown for a show the Ale House in Troy at 8pm on Saturday, June 16. Mark your calendar now…