words by Andrew Norman | photos by Shannon Claire

Downtown Lincoln on Saturday was as messy a college party scene as they come. It began at noon with the annual Barstool Open, a bar crawl/fundraiser for United Cerebral Palsy that pits teams of four in a putting contest. But really, it's a socially acceptable excuse to get hammered during the day. Walking between O and P on 14th Street that afternoon, I saw two men wearing team "69" shirts wrestling on the sidewalk outside of Jake's, a woman shaking the chain-link fence as if she was trapped in the Hour Lounge's smoking patio and no fewer than two guys making the humpy motion to no one in a particular. It was the kind of event that causes people to lose their insoles and their relationships.

And that was all before 5 p.m. By regular bar time, downtown Lincoln was absolutely nutty. Luckily, the Zoo Bar is always a safe haven from the college drinking carnival. However, with Kill County and Simon Joyner on the bill, the Zoo was as packed as I'd ever seen it with its own kind of carnies crammed in every space between chairs, around tables and in the bathroom lane of the old blues bar.

You'd never call the floor in front of the Zoo Bar stage a "pit," but it resembled one as Kill County began its set at about 10 p.m. A largely bearded clan came to see off a band whose two songwriters live in different states, and that had been holed up, recording some 14 new songs at drummer Brad Kindler's house with engineer Brian Bussard for the past two weeks or so. Banjo player and vocalist Ringo was catching a 3:30 a.m. train Sunday morning back to Ann Arbor, Mich. Guitarist and vocalist Josh James was headed back to Austin on Monday. Kindler leaves town March 5 to spend two years in the Peace Corps in Malawi.

Kill County shows always feel sentimental somehow, with their timeless folk songs filled out by two- and three-part harmonies and a crying pedal steel, performed by five men who genuinely consider each other family. But Saturday night's performance was emotional even by their standards.

Featuring about 11 fantastic new songs — only one of which I'd heard — and maybe four old ones, it had the feeling of the closing hours of a family reunion, where grandpa pulls out his Mexican guitar and the whole tribe sings with everything they have, trying avoid the realization that soon they'd be on their way home, unsure of if and when this kindred jam would happen again. Kill County closed in style, with "The Train, The Drink and The Dawn" — as well-spun lyrical narrative as I've ever read — and the uptempo bluegrass stomp, "This Family." It was intimate, sometimes rowdy, and ended too fast, like a whiskey shot thrown at the back of your throat that drops through the gullet to the gut. It's a nice warm feeling while it sits there, though.

Next up was Simon Joyner, one of Nebraska's most influential songwriters whose extensive catalog is as impressive as the way he's produced it — song by song, album by album, touring just enough to sell the records needed to finance the next one. He's shied from the spotlight — even while his friends were becoming globally famous. And he's continued to produce incredibly earnest, engaging music year after year. He hadn't played Lincoln in at least a decade, by his account, and he brought a full band for the occasion. The Tarnished Angels featured Mike Friedman (pedal steel), David Nance (guitar), Noah Sterba (bass), Mike Morasco (drums) and L. Eugene Methe (keyboard). Even without cellist/violinist Megan Siebe, who couldn't make the show, that's a lot of members on the Zoo Bar's tiny stage, requiring Methe to sit on the back end of stage playing keys to the bar's back wall.

And all those members made for a lot of sound. In fact, their amps were so loud that Zoo soundguy Brent O'Neill said he eventually just pulled all the instruments, save the vocals, out of the mix. Wearing blue jeans, boots, a flannel shirt and a straw hat, Joyner closed his eyes and played nine gorgeous songs for the Lincoln crowd, including a bunch of new ones that will be on his upcoming double LP. I hadn't seen him perform before, and wasn't expecting so much rock. Led by Nance's (The Prairies, Forbidden Tigers) feral guitar, the band turned what could otherwise be slow, folk numbers into full-on indie rockers. It provided the perfect amount of energy to close the night. And I was thankful to have been there to see it. Let's hope it doesn't take another 10 years to get this Nebraska music legend back to one of the state's most historic venues. 

Shannon Claire captured images from the show. See them below:

Andrew Norman is Hear Nebraska's editor-in-chief. He urges you to listen to the Clay Masters-produced story about Simon Joyner that ran recently on "All Things Considered." Contact him at andrewn@hearnebraska.org.