CONCERT RECAP: Pecos and the Rooftops’ Victory Lap Tour Comes Home to Cook’s Garage

Running across the country following their major-label signing with Warner Records, Pecos & the Rooftops brought their tour back to their hometown for a sold-out evening at Cook’s Garage.

Saturday night’s show was a sort of full circle moment for me personally. The first article I ever wrote for this station and this website was a review of the band’s show last year at the same venue and getting to come back a year later when I’ve gotten a tiny bit better at this was a treat. I’ll be honest though, I wasn’t really looking forward to this show as it approached. For starters, Pecos & the Rooftops have always been a hit-or-miss live band. The first time I saw them, they played a pretty sloppy rock show and lead singer Pecos Hurley was out of key for most of the evening. The second time I saw them, however, they crushed it. Sure, Hurley wasn’t perfect but the band felt way tighter and the show flowed way better than my first time seeing them. So, I was cautiously optimistic about seeing the band for the third time. Would the band bring their A-game for a hometown show? Or would it be another night of me wanting to leave early due to a rough performance? Also, the bands’ setlist was nearly identical both times I saw them before, would that finally change as well? Or would they once again come through Lubbock with the exact same show? Fortunately, just about every bad scenario I considered netted a positive outcome.

The band brought an arena-sized production to Cook’s Bus Barn Stage. One of my friends who was also taking pictures that night said it was the first time they were playing a show with their new lighting rig and, did it feel overkill at times? Yeah, but with the band signing a major label deal and probably spending another year on the road non-stop, it feels necessary to finally upgrade a little bit. Second, the setlist did change and they added a bunch of interludes and fun intros as well, just to try and avoid that awkward silence in between songs. Whether it was the band playing the intro to Guns n’ Roses’ Welcome to the Jungle which built up into the intro of opener Yesteryear or slowly moving up notes until it blended perfectly into the This Damn Song acoustic riff, it was a little thing that made a world of difference.

The band was on fire and rose to the occasion of their hometown show. They’re a well-oiled machine at this point. They breezed through a 90-minute set nearly effortlessly and looked like they were having a great time doing it. Hurley was full of smiles throughout the evening and I don’t think there was anyone on stage having a bad time, including Brandon Jones who is confined to a chair, wearing a medical boot on his left foot, and had to enter the stage on crutches. Opening their show with a great run of Yesteryear, Leave Me Lonely, and Conociste, the last of which had a killer final chorus and outro, I noticed another change that made the show stand out above the rest. Hurley was really talkative and energetic on stage.

During the first two songs, Hurley was moving around the stage, full of smiles, going up to the edge of the stage to bang his head in front of fans and bantering with the crowd at times. When I saw them last year, Hurley only really addressed the crowd maybe 2 times. This time, he talked to the crowd whenever possible. He thanked everyone for showing up, got the crowd to put their hands up, told the story of the band all meeting and forming at the Raider Pass Apartments off of 4th Street, and before closing the show with This Damn Song, told the crowd about their signing with Warner Music and saying that it wouldn’t be possible without Lubbock, Texas saying, “We’ll never forget you guys.”

The show was opened by KVDE (pronounced Kade), the band’s original drummer. When I first saw that he was opening I seriously thought I was being pranked. I didn’t understand why someone that was doing his best blackbear impression was opening for a band like Pecos. Here’s what I’ll say about his set, I didn’t love his music and I’m still scratching my head at him being an opener but he was a really good performer. He was energetic and great at getting the crowd who was actually paying attention to him engaged, but, that’s the biggest issue I think. This crowd was so split on him. When I was taking pictures by the bar, a person in the crowd asked me “Who is this guy?” I told him his name was KVDE and he told me, “I love this guy! He’s legit!” A few minutes later, while I was taking pictures near the sound booth, another fan was looking at me with a very confused look on his face. He tapped me on the shoulder and said, “What are you doing?” I told him I was taking pictures for this station and told him my plan for this article. He then looked at me and said, “You’re taking pictures of this garbage? I’m seriously about to leave.” Regardless, I still enjoyed his set and he even included a pretty incredible cover of Linkin Park’s One Step Closer.

I think the only gripe I have with the show is something that points back to Pecos as a band and that is just how much unreleased material they play night after night. I understand that it’s hard to fill out a 90-minute show when you only have 10 officially released songs (one that they don’t play live), but man, having half of the show be songs that no one has heard before is a pretty tough scene. I will say though, should some of these songs be released, they’re sitting on a gold mine. The biggest standout of the new stuff was a song called 5 AM which they played near the end of the show. It had such a great hook and Hurley’s singing on the song is fantastic. I don’t know if or when the song will be released but I hope it is soon. Other standouts throughout the night for me were Last Night’s Lashes which sounds so much better live than its studio version and Wouldn’t Have To Miss You which has such an awesome double-time and energetic final chorus.

So, in the end, Pecos & the Rooftops came out of this show on the positive side of the hit:miss ratio for me. Part of me wonders if they’ve finally turned the corner and I won’t have to worry about them being dodgy live. However, the experience I had at JAB Fest will probably always make me walk into their shows cautiously optimistic.

Pecos & the Rooftops Setlist:

Yesteryear
Leave Me Lonely
Conociste
Bricks
Kill A Man
Last Thing I Remember
Ain’t No Sunshine (Bill Withers cover)
Lonely With You
She Says
Last Nights Lashes
Memories
Hurt No More
5 AM
When I’m Gone
Wouldn’t Have To Miss You
Cabin Fever
This Damn Song