John McCauley III kicked off Wednesday’s show at City Winery as Sinatra often did, asking “how did all these people get in my room?” He spent the rest of his night at the wine bar throwing back cans of Budweiser and alt-rocking.
On their second evening in Chicago, Deer Tick played a set of fan favorites, peppered with some great covers and even an appearance from Scott Lucas from Local H. Scott emerged from backstage when John forgot the lyrics to a NRBQ cover and later joined the band to add some flange-heavy guitar on Chevy Express.
I got into Deer Tick after stumbling across Middle Brother, John’s side project with Delta Spirit’s Matt Vasquez and Taylor Goldsmith from Dawes, so I was delighted when they broke out a couple Middle Brother tunes. I was even happier when they jumped into Bad, Bad Leroy Brown. I’m pretty sure they intended to end the set with that one, but the crowd went wild and they returned to the stage more times than I could count at that point in the night.
I will definitely be buying tickets the next time Deer Tick rolls through town.
Chill dude.