Review: Reservations (bad name, good band)

I went out last Friday to see Elaine Greer, a singer/songwriter formally of Austin who now lives in Nashville. She was hyped up to me by a friend but doesn’t get around to these parts too often nowadays, so I was looking forward to seeing her since she was back on her old stomping grounds.

The show was upstairs at Lamberts, which was a nice setup — very small and intimate. A stage in the back corner, one bar, about 5 or 6 tables along the stair railings, plus maybe 4 booths along the far wall. There was also a lot of standing-only room, but on the night I was there the crowd was fairly thin. And there didn’t appear to be any sort of green room for the musicians, based on all the equipment piled up outside the toilets.  To be honest, the downstairs Lamberts I find a bit foofy, even though it’s super popular. Their claim to fame is “fancy barbeque” and those two words together just don’t make any kind of sense to me. Plus, their beers are ridiculously expensive. But the upstairs? Pretty nice. Beer still ridiculously expensive.

The show was suppose to start about 10ish, but time just kept rolling on and no one was playing. A bit after 11 my friend went to talk to the bassist of the opening band, Reservations, to see what was up, and she said that she’d heard Elaine was ill and not going to perform. And indeed, about 5 minutes later they made an announcement that she wasn’t going to make it. Bummer. They offered to refund tickets if anyone wanted to go, but Reservations was still going to play. Most of us who had been there since the doors opened were just like, “Hey, any band would be fine now; let’s just see something.” So Reservations, the band that should have been the follower, became the headliner.

Reservations is an Austin-based minimalist rock band, the solo project of singer/guitarist Jana Horn, joined by Paul Price and Jason Baczynski. Their overall sound is mellow and a little dreamy, with a lot of melodic guitar layering. Horn’s got a strong but non-unique voice. Overall, they played a nice — though short — set. Of course, they didn’t know they would be the headliners that night, so I can’t really fault them for that. Though I can fault them for their completely un-Googleable band name.

Reservations released an EP last year called, uh, Reservations, of all things! which you can check it out here, and they’re also working on their first full-length album which is due sometime this year. Their next show will be at the Mohawk on December 5th, supporting These Mad Dogs of Glory. Give it a listen:

I guess I’ll have to catch Elaine Greer on her next trip back to Austin but until then, you can listen here.