The Traveling Cowboys - Mulligan's Saloon, McHenry 10.24.09

This was a weird and sometimes frightening night. I decided to hit it hard and check out McHenry County-based bands if I could find them and I did. I also wanted to check out some clubs I had not been to lately to see a band in. I started out tonight at Mulligan's Saloon in McHenry. It's a big square box room with a high ceiling and a good-sized bar. It didn't have a lot of personality but it looked like the kind of place one could hang out in. The downside is that the band sets up with their backs against glass windows and that's never good from an acoustic standpoint. However, the quality of the sound from the audience side was not the problem.

Please guys, take this constructively. You're a band who's been around a while. I know that. And maybe I hit a "down" night. I'll continue and remember, this is just my opinion and nobody else's as far as I know.

The Traveling Cowboys is a four-piece band of two guitars, a bass and drums. They all wear cowboy hats except for the drummer. They two guitarists had music stands up there. They ran their own sound and they did a great job of that considering the glass and all that. The guitar playing was adequate as was the drumming. The bass player sounded technically very proficient but there were a lot of missed cues and wrong notes and this is somewhat typical of a sub. The vocals were OK. Both guitarists were vocalists. One was better than the other. I do have to add that one of the guitarists had an antigua strat and that is COOL. However, there were no harmonies. When two people sang, they were singing in unison. This is usually a sign of a band that just got out of the garage and I know these guys have been around a while.

They played Superstar (Bad Company) and it was OK. They played a few country songs and they were OK. They then played Take It Easy (Eagles) and this was very rough. Again, this song is known for harmonies and I certainly don't expect most bands to copy those kind of harmonies but, there were no harmonies at all; just unison singing.

Oh. One other thing. There was no "flow to the show". There were long breaks between songs. When there's long breaks between songs, there's no show. It's always good to have some show.

All in all, I was not overly impressed and maybe I did just hit an off night (we all have them) and I'll make a point to check them out again. Check out their web presence at http://www.myspace.com/the_traveling_cowboys