It’s been an awesome if not exhausting week for shows for me. Thankfully, last night’s bill at the Crossroads KC was just what I needed. Memphis-made rockers Lucero and the Dallas-bred quartet the Old 97s transformed the lot behind Grinders into a makeshift roadhouse dive with their distinct brands of swaggering liquor-soaked country rock. With a mulch floor beneath the crowd’s feet and a beautifully open evening sky above — not to mention about as a bearable of an evening as you can get in KC in late July temperature-wise — the setting couldn’t be more perfect.

While some in the crowd were muttering about who should really be opening for who, with the majority opinion seeming to be that Lucero should have been topping the bill, the derision was nullified by the robust setlist delivered by both bands. Lucero frontman Ben Nichols trademark whiskey-on-gravel vocals were delivered with an intense sense of sincerity as the band paced through a generous mix of well-established and newer material. Meanwhile, the Old 97s’ Rhett Miller took more of a hammed up alt-country approach by working the crowd with hip sways, leg kicks and hair tosses while the band blasted through their core cuts with a few cover song surprises thrown in (Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” and REM’s “Driver 8″). For a crowd looking to shake off the dust and dirt of the KC summer, this was a show custom-built for the beer-and-barstool jetset.

Many thanks to Concert Chris for the hook-up on the tix. My photos of the evening are below…