What I was expecting was the rollicking outlaw country stylings that were on display this past South by Southwest, the kind of barroom-brawl type-stuff that sounds like Lucinda Williams with a fierce punk-rock bent. No, what was dispensed, at Houston’s near-legendary Fitzgerald’s, was Lydia Loveless at her most emotionally potent, a mixture of venemous barbs and beary-eyed belligerence, a poignant epitaph of the material from her latest and highly praised LP Somewhere Else.

Hit the jump for the full review.

– sunbear

Decked in a leather jacket and derby barely containing the shroud of red hair obscuring her face, the bantam-sized Loveless, aided with her supremely snappy band, which includes husband and bassist Ben Lamb, stood with a pink-spotlight at her back, casting a bombastic silhouette that matched the passionate vocal performance she would soon turn in.

Loveless put everything out there on the first night of this tour, opening for the Texas hometown heroes and labelmates, Old 97’s. The gut-wrenching punch of the sobering “Somewhere Else” rendered the liveliness of “Wine Lips” nearly ineffective. The tongue-in-cheek cover of Ke$ha’s “Blind” was eschewed for the blunt “Mile High,” which features the award-winning lyric “I was thinking of things I’d do if I had the time until my fingers smell like pussy and Lucky Strikes.”

Loveless has a tone to her voice that all at once sounds like a brassy blast of bravado shackled down by the weight of harrowing despair. The backbone of great country music, if you ask me. “Head,” far and away her best song, had such an affected quality in her billowy confession of “Some mornings I still wake up all kinds of confused cuz I fell asleep with your record on again.” That voice paints such a picture of pain, the choral demand for oral sex was almost glossed over live.

Playing to a room whose median aged easily doubled that of her 23 years, Loveless roused the Lone Star-swillers out of their comfort zones with her brazen lyrics and off-kilter humor (“We’ve got shirts and records for sale, as well as some locks of Ben’s hair and particles of my virginity”). Did I mention how much her band rocks? I did.

Loveless has the pipes and swagger to become something more than the “that’s impressive for her age” shaded-compliments she’s been gathering as of late. I could bet she could barely give a fuck just as well. She’s an artist who is strong in her convictions and lays it out bare, and that, frank as it is, is invigorating.

Photos by Todd Cooper. Catch the remainder of her tour with the Old 97s. Dates here.