You can buy the CDs along with tour posters at the Twilight Singers Country Store.

At the Mercy Lounge in Nashville, TN 10/12/2010
thx Keith!

For his first public performance in more than a year, former Afghan Whigs and current Twilight Singers frontman Greg Dulli selected the shin-high stage of d.b.a., a beer bar in New Orleans’ bustling Frenchmen Street entertainment district. Dulli is well-acquainted with the area: He owns a house and co-owns a bar nearby, and he recorded much of the Twilight Singers’ 2006 album “Powder Burns” in a studio around the corner. His decades-long dark night of the soul often played out in the streets, barrooms, and bedrooms of the Big Easy.

The 150 souls who filled d.b.a. on Friday night consisted mostly of hardcore fans who traveled to New Orleans for the opening night of Dulli’s first “An Evening With” unplugged tour. He rewarded them with a generous two-hour set that sampled all phases of his career.

Backed by violinist-cellist Rick Nelson and guitarist Dave Rosser, he opened at midnight with his first-ever live performances of “St. Gregory” and the “Powder Burns” title track. The acoustic setting flattered his morning-after rasp, which, at its most intense, strained the d.b.a. PA.

With guest Ani DiFranco — like Dulli, an adopted New Orleanian — he reprised their “Blackbird and the Fox” duet, the torchy first single from the Twilight Singers’ forthcoming album on Sub Pop. He showcased two other tracks from that project, “Gunshots” and “Never Seen No Devil.” Otherwise, he ranged far and wide across his back catalog.

He wallowed in the depravation of “Decatur Street.” The Afghan Whigs’ anthemic “Summer’s Kiss” veered into Springsteen territory. Brawny, Zeppelin-like acoustic chords buttressed “God’s Children,” from his Gutter Twins collaboration with Mark Lanegan.

The Whigs’ “Step Into the Light” was set down for a soft landing. The partisan crowd gleefully sang the “she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah” Beatles reference in “Forty Dollars” and an impromptu verse of “Pinball Wizard” tacked on “Teenage Wristband.”

He did not limit himself to his own compositions. Eyes closed, he inhabited Basement Jaxx’s “Lights Go Down.” Nelson’s fleet cello strokes propelled a reimagining of Bjork’s “Hyper-Ballad.” Dave Catching of the Eagles of Death Metal and Queens of the Stone Age joined a closing cover of Big Star’s “Take Care” dedicated to Alex Chilton, who died in New Orleans in March.

For much of the night, Dulli worked an acoustic guitar alongside Rosser’s electric-acoustic Alvarez. Against the majestic sweep of Nelson’s cello, Rosser teased out a country-flecked solo on the Whigs’ “Let Me Lie to You.” In the encore, Dulli switched to an electric keyboard for the Whigs’ “What Jail Is Like” and the Twilight Singers’ “Candy Cane Crawl.”

Dulli shot down a shouted request for the Whigs’ “Now You Know,” dismissing it as one of his lesser works. And he served notice to a boisterous crew near the stage: “You’re not going to talk through this one, are you? You can talk on the loud ones. You talk through the quiet ones, that’s just not cool.”

But as the momentum of “Let Me Lie to You” built, Dulli cupped his hand to his ear, grinning — now he wanted them loud. They obliged.

Setlist:
St. Gregory
Powder Burns
God’s Children
Blackbird and the Fox
The Lure Would Prove Too Much
Bonnie Brae
Lights Go Down (Basement Jaxx cover)
Let Me Lie to You
Forty Dollars
Decatur Street
Step Into the Light
Gunshots
Hyper-Ballad (Bjork cover)
If I Were Going
Summer’s Kiss
Follow You Down
The Stations
Never Seen No Devil

What Jail Is Like
Candy Cane Crawl
Teenage Wristband
Twilite Kid
Take Care (Big Star cover)

MARK Lanegan has one of the most in-demand voices in music. Since his band Screaming Trees disbanded in 2000, he has collaborated with Queens of the Stone Age, Creature with the Atom Brain, Bomb the Bass and Soulsavers. Belle and Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell, Melissa Auf der Maur and Martina Topley Bird are some of the female singers who have weaved their voices with his deep caramel baritone.

His most recent muse has been his old friend Greg Dulli from the Afghan Whigs. Lanegan has appeared on three albums with Dulli’s recent band, Twilight Singers, and Dulli returned the favour on two Lanegan albums.

The pair have formed their own band, the Gutter Twins (a low-rent take on Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ “Glimmer Twins”). In 2007, they released an album, Saturnalia, which they are currently playing in their show, An Acoustic Evening with Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan, alongside tracks from the Twilight Singers, Afghan Whigs, Screaming Trees and Mark Lanegan solo songbooks.

“It took quite a while because when we first started, we didn’t have plans to make a record,” Lanegan says of the Gutter Twins.

“We wrote a couple of songs here and there and then we decided to get serious and got the bulk of it done in a pretty short time. I enjoyed the process and we’re really good friends. I’m sure we’ll make another Gutter Twins record.”

The pair, whose relationship goes back to when they used to play Hank Williams songs in the kitchen of the house they shared in Los Angeles, have been known to burn the candle at both ends. But Dulli has said that the name refers more to how the two are perceived, rather than their current lifestyles.

“We’re pretty old guys, we take it pretty easy these days,” confirms Lanegan, 44.

It’s not as if Lanegan needed any help. Between 1990 and 2004, he released six brilliant solo albums. But he says he enjoys the challenge of collaborations and discovering how his voice can blend with others.

He says he receives “quite a few” requests from musicians wanting to work with him and he has declined many. So what does he look for?

“I’ve got to have an appreciation of what they do without me. Then I’ve got to see if there is a place for me in what they do, like a meeting point. If they’re cool people — that’s pretty high on the list. And it’s important to be challenged by someone’s point of view. I look to other people to be challenged.”

Lanegan’s next project is a second album and tour with Soulsavers, which will be followed by a third collaboration with British singer Campbell. Although it is easier to collaborate in the digital age, when you can email vocal parts, early recordings between Lanegan and Campbell suffered from the tyranny of distance.

But for their new album they will sing face-to-face in the studio, a la Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, to improve the chemistry.

“Obviously, I prefer being in the same studio,” Lanegan says.

“It’s always nice when you have the real thing in front of you.

“Singing with her is one of the great joys of my music life.”

Not many people would have the nerve to leave a revered rock band like Queens of the Stone Age but that’s what Lanegan did. However, he is keen to work with them again.

“They’re great friends … I just went out and had lunch with Josh [Homme] a couple of weeks ago.”

And when will he get that wonderful solo career back on track? “That’s a good question,” he says. “I’ve been so busy with other things I haven’t really gotten into it yet but at some point I will.”

All of a sudden, I feel the need to bust out my copy of Ride the Lightning.

Photo credit: Orcoo

An Evening with Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan
July 15, Dusseldorf Germany – Savoy Theater

The Body
God’s Children
The Stations
If I Were Going
Sworn and Broken
Down the Line
We Have Met Before
Creeping Coastline of Lights
Resurrection Song
Martin Eden
Twilite Kid
Sunrise
Summer’s Kiss
River Rise
Sunset Machine
I Am In the Heavenly Way
— Encore
Candy Crane Crawl
One Hundred Days
Three Hours

An Evening with Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan
July 1, 2009 – Bourbon Street Music Club, São Paolo, Brazil

Thanks to Andre for assembling and notating the setlist -

01 – Gutter Twins – The Body [from: Saturnalia (2008)]
02 – Gutter Twins – God’s Children [from: Saturnalia (2008)]
03 – Gutter Twins – The Stations [from: Saturnalia (2008)]
04 – Afghan Whigs – If I Were Going [from: Gentlemen (1993)]
05 – Screaming Trees – Sworn and Broken [from: Dust (1996)]
06 – Gutter Twins – Down The Line (Jose Gonzalez) [from: Adorata (2008)]
07 – Gutter Twins – We Have Met Before [from: Adorata (2008)]
08 – Mark Lanegan – Creeping Coastline of Lights [from: I'll Take Care
of You (1999)]
09 – Mark Lanegan – Resurrection Song [from: Field Songs (2001)]
10 – Twilight Singers – The Twilight Kid [from: Twilight As Sung By
The Twilight Singers (2000)]
11 – Twilight Singers – King Only [from: Twilight As Sung By The
Twilight Singers (2000)]
12 – Mark Lanegan – Sunrise [from: Whiskey For The Holy Ghost (1994)]
13 – Afghan Whigs – Summer’s Kiss [from: Black Love (1996)]
14 – Mark Lanegan – The River Rise [from: Whiskey For The Holy Ghost (1994)]
15 – Gutter Twins – Sunset Machine [from: London 01.19.09 (Bootleg) (2009)]
16 – Washington White – I am in the Heavenly Way [from: Goodbye,
Babylon (Disc 3) (2003)]
17 – Afghan Whigs – What Jail Is Like [from: Gentlemen (1993)]
18 – Screaming Trees – Dollar Bill [from: Sweet Oblivion (1992)]
19 – Nick Drake – Three Hours [from: Five Leaves Left (1969)]

Fan-shot video of “Dollar Bill” -

7/1 Bourbon Street Sao Paolo BR
7/4 Teatro Oriente Santiago CL
7/7 La Trastienda Buenos Aires AR
7/11 Cactus Festival Bruges BE
7/12 Paradiso Amsterdam NL
7/13 Doornroosje Nijmegen NL
7/15 Savoy Theatre Düsseldorf DE
7/16 Stage Club Hamburg DE
7/17 Vega Copenhagen DK
7/19 Royal Festival Hall London UK
7/23 York Theater Sydney AU
7/24 Athenaeum Melbourne AU
7/26 Splendour in the Grass Byron Bay AU

No official word from the band yet – but dates in Amsterdam (Paradiso, 7/12), Nijmegan (Doornroosje, 7/13), Copenhagan (Vega 7/17) and London (Southbank Centre, 7/19) are in the wild.