6-12-08:

Blues On The Green review
By Andy Langer

A huge crowd of real music fans. Zilker Park. Good food, vendor style. Dogs on leashes. Asleep At The Wheel. This is how you kick off a season of free concerts. For Asleep At The Wheel, setting the tone of a show, festival or series is second nature; they played the first Austin City Limits taping ever, have become the perennial opener of the Austin City Limits Music Festival and have spent the better part of four decades bringing the best out of their friends (from Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson to Van Morrison and Lyle Lovett). Better yet, it can be argued that Ray Benson's latest AATW line-up is its best - Elizabeth McQueen and Jason Roberts bring a renewed energy to a band already hardly lacking in energy. Add a few bonafide Texas anthems - from "Miles And Miles of Texas" to "Boogie Back To Texas" - and you've got a band that delivers every time; a band to sing along with and to get off the blanket to dance to. And for that, Asleep At The Wheel offered exactly what we've come to expect from Blues On The Green - a night that was quintessentially Austin in tone and delivery, and thus quintessentially Blues On The Green.