Co-headlining excursions are a dime a dozen (give or take lots of of {dollars} in tacked-on charges). However precise collaboration on the highway is one other factor, with most bands too protecting of their manufacturers at hand over very a lot of their nightly set instances to really share another person’s imaginative and prescient. In a joint highway present, we cherish the moments when one band’s lead singer joins the opposite for an encore quantity or two. However precise merged identities? That’s one thing that occurs in Altman or Kieslowski movies, however rock ‘n’ roll reveals, not a lot.

Dawes and Lucius did a uncommon factor, then, in using the buddy system for a tour that wrapped up Sunday with an nearly-hometown present at Pappy + Harriet’s, out within the hills above and past Palm Springs. Though elaborate superior notifications of how issues would go down didn’t damage, the Tag Crew Tour moniker was a good indication that this could not be your inventory “we’ll alternate headlining standing” type of two-band invoice, however that the 2 artists can be looking for glory within the slight humility of a very shared area for the higher a part of three hours. In the event you had been a fan of both act, you’d should have an appreciation for a way these artists complemented each other. However if you happen to occur to already acknowledge each of them as best-in-class examples of how robust old style rock virtues can proceed to be within the 2020s, then this was a match made in heaven, or no less than the very best elements of the excessive desert.

One of many nice unwanted side effects of a setup like that is the prospect to spotlight cowl songs greater than a band would possibly in any other case dare to, since their respective audiences are already primed to not be getting something like a typical greatest-hits-plus-new-songs present. The joint set at Pappy + Harriet’s included 5 nice ones, beginning with the opening “Shine On You Loopy Diamond,” which the 2 ladies of Lucius used to sing each night time, in a pre-pandemic period, as featured backup wailers for Roger Waters on the time. Lots of people who loved that tour would harbor extra doubts now about whether or not to purchase tickets for a Waters present … so what a pleasure to have one other shot at listening to their vocals on the signature Pink Floyd quantity, with Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith because the officiant. Lucius additionally introduced of their longstanding model of the Grateful Lifeless’s “Uncle John’s Band,” severe rearranged in each melodic strategy to create an fascinating area for feminine harmonies, discovering Goldsmith to be a great, complementary Deadhead as he traded lead guitar strains with slide specialist Trevor Menear.

For his half, Goldsmith, a self-acknowledged Warren Zevon nut, seemed to be the driving drive behind “Desperados Beneath the Eaves,” which all the time feels acceptable to play in Southern California, even when, on this Yucca Valley-adjacent setting, it should have been tempting to substitute the closing cries of “Look away, down Gower Avenue” with “Look away, down Freeway 62.” (You can see a slight glimpse of Joshua timber behind the tour bus parked behind the Pappy’s stage, and people look much more like “crucified thieves” than the palm timber Zevon was referencing, don’t they?) Goldsmith additionally introduced in Joni Mitchell’s “Come In From the Chilly,” a track he humble-bragged he had nervously began taking part in for its originator on his first night time attending a non-public Joni Jam. The closing “With a Little Assist From My Buddies” was very a lot the soulful Joe Cocker model, not Ringo’s peppy, faintly plaintive authentic. Nearly as good as Goldsmith was at approximating a prettier model of Cocker’s howl, you wouldn’t have wished to listen to his solutions with out Lucius forming a two-women choir to ask the “Do you want anyone?” questions.

Even with the present bookended and full of that many historic exterior decisions, a 2-hour-and-50-minute working time (with a 20-minute intermission within the center) nonetheless allowed ample time to amplify two of the most effective authentic catalogs in modern rock, with 10 Lucius songs and eight from Goldsmith’s pen. So long as you could possibly stay with the truth that this was an evening the place you weren’t going to get even slightly little bit of “A Little Little bit of All the pieces” (Dawes having 9 studio albums, to Lucius’ 4, mandated some more durable decisions about what to depart in or out, presumably), this was to be a present that surpassed even peak live shows you might need skilled with one artist or the opposite prior to now.

The query of “Why don’t different bands pair up this manner?” is a legitimate one, however full crucial transparency entails acknowledging that there won’t be anyone else in music fairly as naturally adaptable to this two-fer format at Lucius. Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig entrance a band of that identify, however in addition they go by the moniker even once they’re collaborating in different individuals’s tasks — and as a lot of the music world is aware of by now, they do a number of that. They’re veritable RBI queens, to place it in baseball phrases, offering a magic secret sauce on information by everybody from Brandi Carlile to Harry Kinds to the Killers and the Warfare on Medication. The Lucius ladies are in some methods the modern-day equal of the singer spotlighted in “20 Toes From Stardom,” besides that they’re good singer-songwriters in their very own proper — actually about pretty much as good of their frontwomen position as anybody they’ve ever shored up from behind. In pop historical past, you’d have a tough time discovering anybody who continually went backwards and forwards between being utility gamers and sluggers with as a lot ease as Wolfe and Laessig. This Tag Crew Tour, quick because it was, gave them the last word alternative to shine in each main woman and supporting actress roles over the course of an evening.

Goldsmith , for his half, additionally has a “performs effectively with others” fame, extending from his cohort position within the “New Basement Tapes” Dylan-reclamation venture a decade again to his participation within the handful of public Joni Jams (to not point out augmenting spouse Mandy Moore’s musical endeavors). Regardless that he doesn’t do a number of session work, he’d even be one of many journeyman guitar guys you may want sitting in for a solo in your report, if he did. So, within the immortal phrases of Marisa Tomei: “You mix.” There was additionally a facet of twin-twins to this setup, as Laessig and Wolfe are type of fake sisters who solely sound like they’ve blood concord, whereas Goldsmith and his drummer-brother Griffin can lay a declare on the true factor. Solely as soon as did the 4 of them line up on the entrance of the stage to sing in unison, because the two-part concord of Lucius’ mild “Two of Us on the Run” become four-part concord as soon as each Goldsmiths bought concerned. However the foursome-style strengths had been implicit within the combine, even when Griffin stayed behind his package.

The remainder of the band consisted largely of gamers who’ve been just lately drafted into Dawes, as that band has gone by means of some modifications, shedding a few of its historic lineup. There was no sense of any lack of continuity, although, on this ensemble taking part in a number of the trickier traditional Dawes materials like they’d all been a unit for years, particularly on a frenetic, deliciously bass-driven piece of pop-psycho-reggae like “Image of a Man.” Instrumental fireworks aren’t all the time crucial for the Lucius materials, though Menear’s slide guitar was a really welcome addition to final yr’s one-off single, “Stranger Hazard.” A few of the greatest Lucius songs are a number of the starkest, particularly “Tempest” and “Lady,” the latter of which bought a stripped-down acoustic therapy, with not a lot to distract from some of the dramatically stunning songs of the final 10 years.

Though Goldsmith is animated throughout his guitar solos, Wolfe gained honors for being probably the most actually jumpy on stage out at Pappy + Harriet’s. Was it end-of-tour power, or trying-to-stave-off-frostbite power? Maybe a mixture of each, however you couldn’t blame anybody on stage for instinctively doing what it took to warmth issues up. Issues had been frosty out within the excessive desert, as temperatures dipped into the mid- and low-40s, even earlier than the solar went down about 45 minutes into the primary set. “It’s 80!” Wolfe insisted towards the start of the present, manifesting a fantasy of extra palatable performing circumstances. They didn’t in any other case dwell on the climate an excessive amount of, past Goldsmith introducing “Come In From the Chilly” as “appropriately, for an evening like tonight.” The gang was ready, anyway, with snapshots of the viewers revealing extra heads with ski caps than not. It was the tip of a mere 10-city tour (albeit witnessed by much more through a Veeps livestream out of Colorado), one that might have actually traversed much more territory… like, say, a correct L.A. gig, though a present of palms indicated that a big share of Angelenos had traveled out. If they will generate this a lot warmth in a chilly snap, it’d be price an experiment to search out out in the event that they might be chill throughout a Los Angeles warmth wave. We’d take any excuse, actually, for a reprise of this excellent, too short-lived tour.

Set listing:

Shine On You Loopy Diamond Elements I-IV (Pink Floyd cowl)

Is available in Waves (Dawes track)

Tempest (Lucius track)

Go Residence (Lucius track)

Hearth Away (Dawes track)

Dusty Trails (Lucius track)

Me Particularly (Dawes track)

Stranger Hazard (Lucius track)

Desperados Beneath the Eaves (Warren Zevon cowl)

When My Time Comes (Dawes track)

Genevieve (Lucius track)

Coime In From the Chilly (Joni Mitchell cowl)

Mad Love (Lucius track)

Million Greenback Invoice (Center Brother track)

Lady (Lucius track)

I Can’t Suppose About It Now (Dawes track)

Lucy (Lucius track)

Image of a Man (Dawes track)

Uncle John’s Band (Grateful Lifeless cowl)

Higher Look Again (Lucius track)

All Your Favourite Bands (Dawes track)

Two of Us on the Run (Lucius track)

With a Little Assist From My Buddies (Beatles cowl)