
This concert was affected by the notorious weather of Michigan. It was originally scheduled to start at 8 PM with The Steel Woods leading off followed by Blackberry Smoke. However Blackberry Smoke was delayed on the road and the venue opted to have The Steel Woods perform as scheduled and the delayed Blackberry Smoke go on stage at 10:30 PM. This left the audience with an approximate two hour intermission between the two acts. Which means, the warm up band really wasn't a warm-up it actually became an act all its own. To give the credit where it is due, the theater did arrange for discounts to be given by the bars and restaurants right in the vicinity so if you wanted to you could leave the theater and enjoy a quick bite to eat or drink between the two performances.
The Steel Woods


I was only peripherally aware of Blackberry Smoke until a few months ago. My frustration at the cancellation of the July Lynyrd Skynyrd concert convinced me that I might need to look for other bands that perform the same style of Southern Rock. A search of the Internet led me to several different bands who were considered to be heirs apparent to Lynyrd Skynyrd's legacy, the one that always topped the lists was Blackberry Smoke. I was unaware of it until later but I had already heard the group before on the One More For the Fans CD performing Workin' For the MCA. I was in the process of checking out their albums when it was announced that they were coming in concert to the Kalamazoo State Theatre, .So I decided to give him a chance to impress me in person and I grabbed some tickets.
They actually went on stage about 10:15 PM, not wanting to hold off any longer than necessary I guess. They performed six songs before they took the first break to say a word other than a quick Thank You for the applause at the end of each song. They were excellent and the band worked well together, I don't recall hearing a cover song all evening, but their style of play and the way that their original songs were arranged could easily be called Skynyrdesque. If they are reading this, I hope they take that is the complement that I mean it to be.

High points to me during the show were Six Ways to Sunday, Waiting for the Thunder, Ain't Got the Blues, and Payback's a Bitch. Every song they played was good in its own right, but those stood out and stayed with me. Most of the songs were off their recently released Like an Arrow album. Overall, the the show, was very tight. They had little dead air between tunes and they moved from one song straight to the next without taking long stretches to talk.
After their last song, they performed an additional three tunes as an encore; including a Little Feat cover of Fat Man In The Bathtub and The Allman Brothers Band tune Southbound. The concert wrapped up at about a quarter past midnight -- which means they performed a solid two hour show.
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