Alex Preston. Enjoy the one and only picture I managed to take.
Well, that was an interesting experience.
I am far from adept at the pub crawl. I go to plenty of concerts, but I have zero knowledge of where the local bands play or what their names are. If I know of someone I like around town that's playing, I tend to go (solo and often sans inebriation), but I usually end up at the local hipster clubs, and even they're a little less hip since Bottletree closed up shop. So this was a bit out of my comfort zone.
The Nick's been around since I was a teenager: it's been almost twenty years, so I guess it's about time I checked the place out. It's fairly proud of its reputation as a dive bar, as well as the fact that sub-millennials like me have no idea that is still exists (The tagline for the venue is, after, all, "Birmingham's Best Kept Secret"). Still, it seems mostly to cater to metal and hard rock acts. It's not really where one expects to see an acoustic act primarily known for his stint on American Idol.
(Speaking of Idol, Alex sort of went out of his way to avoid that particular topic, which is not something I've experienced when I've seen Idol alumni play at other small venues. He mentioned that he had only been to Birmingham once before, and I'm pretty sure that was when the Idol tour swung around these parts a few years ago, but he definitely didn't let on why he was here. I don't think anybody would have given him any flak for it, but who knows).
On that note, this was one of the least boisterous concert experiences I have ever had. The bar was mostly filled with regulars and I'm pretty sure only a handful of us were there specifically for the music. There was a raucous discussion between a sixtysomething low-level redneck and a hipster dressed in what I can only describe as Mad Scientist chic (purple hair, yellow trench coat, Santa Clause red pants, and spectacles that put my vision to shame) about various political issues that was allegedly to be followed up on at a later time, but even that didn't seem to have the potential of a bar fight. I might have been mildly disappointed, but I'm not sure the kind of music I was there for calls for that sort of thing, either.
Alex was in really fine form: the acoustic blues stylings perhaps play best to just him and a guitar, and he was fabulous. The guitar playing has gotten a lot better since Idol, and he was in really great vocal form. I see a lot of bands who are great live but have never, ever been accused of singing in tune, so I definitely appreciate someone who can sing great as well as put on an engaging performance. I only recognized about half of the songs from his 2015 album, but the new stuff was really good, too, and I'm hoping he puts out more. His cover version of Sex and Candy was one of the sexiest things I've ever heard, too.
Alex played a longer set than the other two acts (I think he did about 12-13 songs, and the next two acts only did about 7 each) and I wasn't going to stay for the duration of the evening, but the guy in the mad scientist get-up who had been sitting next to me during Alex's entire set turned out to be the lead singer of the next band, The Come On. I don't know why it took me so long to figure that one out (I guess not a lot fazes me these days). They were a quirky rock back in the style of They Might Be Giants or Cake: typical subject matter was cemeteries, Oliver Sacks, and black and white TVs. It wasn't really my type of music, but it was definitely entertaining.
I was set to leave after that point (it was getting close to 1 AM), but the final act, Rooster, turned out to be the same band . . . once the Mad Scientist frontman discarded his trench coat and the blonde girl on keyboards slapped on an acoustic guitar and proceeded to churn out the moody, decadent, funereal alt-country stylings that I love. Turns out Rooster and The Come On are the same band. The music livened up after a few songs, but I didn't mind. Things got a bit punk rock with the closer, with lots of screaming about bad men, too much whiskey, and ne'er do well relatives. I think that girl and I may be related.
Rooster and The Come On don't have much of a social media presence, but The Come On do have a few songs out on Spotify. As for Alex, the Spotify link is here if you care to give his stuff a listen.
