I got there just as a sample of R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” intro’d the Plairs’ funked up song of the same name. “Where’s Mayor Wynn?” Blakes asked, trying to get him on stage. It didn’t happen, but they gave a soulful cover of the first verse of “Bad Moon Rising” anyway. Bavu didn’t ask fellow ACL performer and “Bad Moon Rising” singer John Fogerty to join him, which would have been interesting. Next was “Black Gold”—not the Soul Asylum song--and Bavu got the crowd shouting the title back right on time after “What’s that bubbling up from the ground?”
Continuing the classic rock theme, they teased with a few bars of Blakes’ Dirty South-proud remake of Neil Young’s “Southern Man.” “Damn, I hate to go, man,” Bavu said, and the crowd hated to see him go too. “We’re gonna take y’all home with some soul,” he said, and the band did; the bassist and drummer played together phenomenally. Pikahsso jumped in for “Smiling Faces,” getting hands waving as he did his maniacal funk maestro act in a white shirt and red bow tie.
Though he wasn’t able to wrangle Austin Mayor Will Wynn, he did get Barack Obama in the house, when Blakes donned a rubber mask likeness of the candidate and gave triumphant high fives.
