Lonesome Hopes For Company At Met

After drawing several hundred people to its record-release party at the Big Dipper in January, High Lonesome is making an ambitious career move.

The band, a relatively new Spokane group that evolved from the defunct Funk Buffalo, is playing The Met tonight.

Even though the 750-seat theater has yet to prove itself as a viable local all-ages venue, High Lonesome isn’t shaken.

“The worse that can happen is that it’s not going to be a great show,” said bassist Chris White. “But it doesn’t hurt to try.”

Last week, another strong local draw, Havana Blast, tried and played to a nearly empty theater.

“I’d sure rather have it be packed, and I think that it’s going to be a pretty good crowd,” White said. “But we’re going to play well whether or not anybody shows up.”

As impressive local sales of its selftitled debut CD and strong attendance at its local shows might point out, High Lonesome just might pull together a well-attended show.

More importantly, the band seems to have retained its Funk Buffalo following, which was at one time fairly substantial.

Tonight won’t be the first time that three of the five members of High Lonesome play The Met.

When White and guitarists Chris Jentzsch and John Beauvais were part of Funk Buffalo, they opened for They Might Be Giants in 1993.

However, it wasn’t exactly the performance they want to be remembered for.

“In order to play that show, because the band was like quirky, they didn’t want the first band to be so different,” White noted. “So, we had to play acoustic.

“I thought we played pretty well for acoustic, but I just felt like we were sold short by not being allowed to plug in,” he said. “I’m not into that whole unplugged thing.

“Ever since then, we decided if we ever do this again, it’s definitely going to be loud.”

Volume is the driving force in High Lonesome’s music.

Even with the sweet, passionate and sometimes delicate vocals of Gina Lancashire, High Lonesome’s sound has a lot of muscle to it.

With dense guitar arrangements from Beauvais and Jentzsch, fat bass tones from White and snappy drumming from Kurt Sterzelbach, High Lonesome rocks.

As proven by the band’s debut CD, a remarkably mature first album, all five musicians in this outfit churn out a truly riveting sound.

Portland’s Josephine Ocean opens the concert.

The show begins at 8:30 p.m.

Reserved tickets are $7 and are available at G&B Select-A-Seat or by calling 325-SEAT.