Live, not at Rev.

  • Live, not at Rev.

“If things go particularly well,” Todd Snider told his audience, “we can all expect a 90-minute distraction from our impending doom.” After his set at the Rev Room on Friday, it’s fair to say that far from the ironic gloom of this sentiment, he’s actually the semi-stoner folk-rocker doing his best to lead us out of hell, not into it. You wonder what a Todd Snider fan looks like? You might as well try to profile a pot smoker: This was among the most diverse crowds you’ll ever find at a Little Rock venue, with barefooted frat boys in golf shorts aisle-dancing to the hooting delight of straight-up hill folk. Snider, who likewise performed sans shoes, was at his best crooning his witty, laconic style of country, from “Crooked Piece of Time” to “Easy Money,” which became a full-room singalong on the lines “everybody wants the most they can possibly get / for the least they can possibly do.”

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Snider seemed oddly withdrawn, with his hands behind his back and his hat pulled low, during the straight-ahead saloon rock of “The Devil You Know,” while the other five pieces of his backing band, including an electric Hammond organ, took charge. But he never faltered. He seemed to genuinely love playing for a Little Rock crowd that genuinely loved him back, positively melting for him during “America’s Favorite Pastime,” about Doc Ellis pitching a no-hitter on LSD in 1972. Wryly, he told the love-throng, “I’ve been looking forward to this evening all day.”

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