John Hiatt & The Goners with Sonny Landreth in Santa Clarita 01/28/18

When I travel to visit my family in Southern California, I always look to see who might be playing near by and catch a show. On this trip I found that the brand new Canyon Club opened their newest location in Santa Clarita, in the northern suburbs of Los Angeles.

Originally I was going to see The Tubes but was informed that my niece’s 30th birthday party was happening as well, and family time prevailed over White Punks On Dope! But the next evening, John Hiatt and The Goners featuring Sonny Landreth were going to be playing and I wasn’t going to miss it!

John Hiatt has built an amazing career with his timeless songs for over 40 years and in this performance he was going to be featuring the 30th anniversary of his album Slow Turning.

As Hiatt came out on stage, with only his guitar in hand, the first set for the evening was entirely solo acoustic. He sang several songs from various albums like “Real Fine Love” from Stolen Moments, and the title tracks of “Crossing Muddy Waters” and “Perfectly Good Guitar” respectively. Hiatt closed out the solo set behind the keyboards with a moving rendition of “Have a Little Faith in Me” from his Bring The Family album.

The second set began with Hiatt being joined by guitarist Sonny Landreth with David Ranson on bass and Kenneth Blevins on drums — aka The Goners — to kick it up a notch to perform the album Slow Turning in its entirety.

The finger stylings and bottle neck guitar playing of Landreth was indescribable, utterly amazing! As the band played track after track you could sense the joy in these musicians as they performed these songs.  After playing the songs “Drive South,” “Trudy And Dave,” “Tennessee Plates,” “Icy Blue Heart,” “Sometime Other Than Now,” and “Georgia Rae”, the band added a rollicking version of “Tiki Bar Is Open.”

Side Two of Slow Turning kicked off with “Ride Along” and they continued to crank out the songs “Slow Turning,” “It’ll Come To You,” “Is Anybody There,” “Paper Thin,” and “Feels Like Rain” to close out the set. For the encore Landreth took the lead in singing “Congo Square” with another blazing guitar solo.

The finale was a rockin’ version of “Memphis In The Meantime” from Bring The Family to close out the night. Hiatt is one of those unique song writers whose career has spanned four decades with many hits to his name. Playing in this intimate venue was even more special as Hiatt and The Goners really entertained the Canyon Club audience.

My complete photo gallery is here: http://peterdervin.com/20180128_john_hiatt.html