Tampa Calling

A band of Florida traveling bards and minstrels aka the Citrus Circuit Tour made a stop at New World Brewery on Saturday, featuring Lake Worth’s Truckstop Coffee, Daytona’s Lauris Vidal, Gainesville’s The Takers and Bradento-based Have Gun, Will Travel.

Have Gun, Will Travel

With three new songs and a Tom Petty cover, Have Gun, Will Travel (HGWT) continues to innovate at each show. Accordingly, HGWT’s set had New World Brewery dancing up a storm and singing their hearts out to old favorites like “When We Were Kings” and “Blessing and a Curse” (affectionately know by fans as “Bop Ba Da” after the chorus that stays in your head all the way home).

I am really looking forward to hearing the recorded versions of these new songs, particularly “Salad Days.”

Have Gun, Will Travel is Scott Anderson (elec. guitar, lap steel), Jean-Paul Beaubien (drums), Matthew Burke (voice, acoustic guitar), Daniel Burke (bass guitar, voice) and Joshua Hernandez (viola)

The Takers

Gainesville’s The Takers bring a wholly hogtown porch-based twist to Americana that gets the audience tapping their toes in a hot second. Taker Easy (Suburban Home Records) is out now so you can take a bit of hogtown honky tonk home with you.

The Takers are Devon Stuart Vlasin, Chad Smith, Ronnie Holmes, Jerome “Romy” Goodman, Jon “P-Nut” Reinertsen and Mike Collins.

Lauris Vidal

This was my first time seeing Lauris Vidal and I have definitely been missing out! From the first note, Vidal and his bandmates had the audience foot tapping and head bobbing, unable to sit still while listening to his swampy, bluesy slice of auditory heaven. For more on Mr. Vidal take a peek at Leilani Polk’s interview.

Truckstop Coffee

I first saw Trucktop Coffee at NWB about a year ago and was taken by their modern yet authentic take on alt-county. Though missing the stomp box at this show, these guys from the Space Coast managed to take the audience to new heights, setting the tone for a night of amazing Americana/roots rock.

Truckstop Coffee is Pete Stein (Guitar/Vocals), Caleb James (Guitar/Vocals), Larry Fulford (Drums/Vocals) and Bob Hershberger (Bass)

Thanks to Joe and Thx Mgmt for bringing another amazing Americana show to Tampa! Also a shout out to Autopsy IV, a fellow CL blogger who is behind the splendid music blog http://ninebullets.net/ for being sweet enough to let me stand in front of him to snap a few of these shots.

In summary, if you missed this show and call yourself a fan of Americana and/or local music, shame on you. Don’t worry … you have a chance at redemption by attending WMNF’s 4th Annual Americana Fest at Skipper’s Smokehouse on July 11th to see an amazing array of Florida Americana/folk acts, including Nine Volts (Cape Canaveral), Matt Butcher (Orlando), Roppongi’s Ace (Tampa), Mike Dunn & the Kings of New England (Winter Park), Black Finger (Lake Worth), Nervous Turkey (Tampa), Thomas Wynn & the Believers (Orlando), Have Gun, Will Travel (Bradenton), Will Quinlan & the Diviners (Tampa), Ted Lukas & the Misled (Tampa), along with Oxford, Miss.-based headliner, Blue Mountain.

For more photos, please visit the following links:

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