[ATTENDED: February 10, 2017] Wolf!
Back in August I saw Marco Benevento open for The Claypool-Lennon Delirium. I didn’t know Marco, but his show was so much fun I promised myself I’d see him again. So I was pretty psyched to see that he was playing at this venue. WOLF! opened up. Technically the band was billed as WOLF! featuring Scott Metzger. This actually didn’t help me, because I didn’t know who he was either. The only other clue was that he was also in a band called Joe Russo’s Almost Dead (with Marco Benevento) who do mostly Grateful Dead covers.
I genuinely didn’t know what to expect from WOLF!, although I certainly had an idea of what they’d sound like from those bona-fides. But boy was I wrong.
Turns out that WOLF! plays pretty much all instrumentals. The songs are kind of surf guitar rock-ish, but not exactly. They are jam-band-ish, but not exactly (the songs are relatively short). And they all center around Metzger’s wonderful, melodic soloing.
I had also never been to the Ardmore Music Hall before, and I was really pleasantly surprised by how small it is. There’s a lot of different places to stand and watch the band–a balcony, a seated area, plenty of room around the bar and then a relatively small area right in front. When I got there, there was nobody there yet. I was tickled at how small the venue was (and I got to watch the three or four guys who were videotaping the show discuss how best to set up their cameras).
When WOLF! came on, there were a few people in front of me and they were just dancing and having a great time through the whole set.
I don’t think I’ve ever been able to see a musician as closeup as I did Scott Metzger. His guitar work was a real treat to watch. The band was really tight, and while neither Jon Shaw on bass or Taylor “The Outlaw” Floreth on drums did anything especially fancy, they were the perfect accompaniment for Metzger’s jams. Metzger also noted that Shaw flew in from Austin at 5:30AM and he was impressed that he hadn’t messed up yet.
In addition to the really good music, there were a few highlights.
On “Cafe Hidalgo” he brought up violinist Katie Jacoby who shared lead duties with Metzger. She played mostly very pretty melodies, although by the end she did get to wail a bit–which was cool. After she left the stage, 
Scott asked if Marco was there yet. They said he had just walked in, so he climbed up on the piano stool and played along for “Tomahawk Chop”
Before he played “Frightenin,” I was amused to see him grab his phone. I assumed he was just checking the time, but then he started looking at the device and I couldn’t imagine what he was going to do with it.
Well, he put it in front of his guitar and started playing the spoken word intro to the song from his phone through the guitar pick up. It was really interesting–I’d not seen that done before.
For the final song he played “Sleep Walk” a cover of the song by Santo & Johnny. He said that it was the last instrumental to reach #1 in America–so kids, be sure to write lyrics, really crappy lyrics. I recognized the melody immediately and he was able to jam it out for about 7 minutes.
It was a really fun opening act, and it was very cool to get to see them up so close.
SETLIST
01. Sock Full Of Quarters
02. Pork ‘N Slaw
03. Tighten Up
04. Chuckles
05. Cafe Hidalgo
06. Tomahawk Chop
07. Whiskey Mister
08. Frightenin’
09. Sleep Walk
You can hear or download the whole show here.
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