Casey James at Kodiak Jacks in Petaluma, California

Thanks to @deesquared777

Tonight, Casey took the stage as the headlining performer at Kodiak Jacks Restaurant & Bar at 8:00pm.  Playing with Casey were Billy Nobel on keyboards, Nolan Verner on bass and Johnny “the Clock” Richardson on drums.  The YouTube playlist of the concert can be found here.

Casey began with “Long, Tall Texan,”  and followed with “Bulletproof.”  Keeping things moving, he continued with “Need Some Texas,” which preceded the recently introduced “She’s Money.”  Slowing things down a bit, Casey then sang the ironically romantic “I Lied.”  “Let’s Don’t Call It a Night” was the next song, and the arrangement was one we have not yet heard.  It had a great, funky vibe.   The lovely “So Sweet” followed.

Starting at Billy Bob’s on July 1, Casey began to roll out a string of blues classics in his sets.  That roll continued tonight when he went into a long, down and dirty rendition of “Drowning on Dry Land.”  It drove the crowd wild.  Moving right along in that blues groove, Casey broke out Bill Withers’ “Use Me.”

Casey then played a song by one of his favorite artists, Doyle Bramhall II, “Green Light Girl.”  The sexy and romantic “Need Your Love So Bad” followed, which preceded “Til My Guitar.”  “Shine Your Shoes,” a song Casey wrote prior to American Idol, was the next song, and it was a rocking rendition!  And he followed that with the jamming “Too Sweet for Me.”

Get ready for a new and bluesified version of “Drive” folks, because Casey changed it up and brought out his latest and greatest version of this one!  Can’t wait for the video.  Finally, Casey concluded his set with the stellar and riveting “Done Made Up My Mind.”

Casey came back on stage for a four-song acoustic encore.  He opened with one of his newer songs, performed for the first time at Billy Bob’s, “Undone.”  Next was “Blue Sky” one of the most beautifully sad, plaintive songs in his repertoire.  Then he sang a Tonic song, “If You Could Only See,” and wrapped it up with Hal Ketchum‘s “Small Town Saturday Night.”  Twenty amazing songs in all!  We will have multiple videos soon, so keep checking back!

Rhonda (@rjnelson785) called in from the venue so fans from around the country could listen in.  Here is the recording of the audio from last night’s show: http://www.mediafire.):

Videos

Long Tall Texan

Bulletproof 

She’s Money (@rjnelson785)

She’s Money (@marieleathem1)

I Lied (w/ending of She’s Money & partial LDCIAN)

I Lied (@rjnelson785)

Let’s Don’t Call It A Night (w/ending of “I Lied”)

Let’s Don’t Call It A Night (@rjnelson785)

Let’s Don’t Call It a Night (@marieleathem1)

So Sweet (@rjnelson785)

So Sweet (@marieleathem1) 

Drowning On Dry Land (@rjnelson785)

Drowning On Dry Land

Drowning on Dry Land (@marieleathem1)

Use Me (@marieleathem1)   

Green Light Girl (@rjnelson785)

Green Light Girl (partial)

Til My Guitar (@rjnelson785)

Shine Your Shoes (@rjnelson785)

Shine Your Shoes (marieleathem1)

Too Sweet For Me (@rjnelson785)

Too Sweet for Me (@marieleathem1) 

Drive (intro only, but oh-what-an-intro) (@rjnelson785)

Done Made Up My Mind (@rjnelson785)

Drive & Done Made Up My Mind (@marieleathem1) 

4-Song Acoustic Encore  (@marieleathem1)

**Special thanks to Rhonda’s daughter, Jayme, who was like a human tripod. I watched her off & on during the show & she had her elbows firmly planted on the table & didn’t budge.  Thanks Jayme!** 

PHOTOS

McKenna Faith, who performed at Kodiak Jacks before Casey James, posted this on her Facebook page:

With Casey James before the show(: heading in stage now come down to Kodiak Jacks it’s gonna be an awesome night(:

On the same page, McKenna wrote, “Love Kodiak Jacks!! Y’all rock!! Casey James is on now he’s so awesome(:”

She also posted this photo of Casey during his set, saying “Casey is amazing!”

After the show, @rosequeens tweeted the following photo and this message: Casey James put on an AWESOME show tonight in Petaluma

@overstrung tweeted: Wow oh wow! Blues for the new generation @CaseyEJames Go see him LIVE!

Then later tweeted this photo, with the caption:    Casey James, Can you feel it?

@overstrung tweeted a link to more photos, including the following.  You can find the rest by clicking here.

New pics from Kodiak Jack’s by Digital Barrett Photography, see the whole album here.

By Digitial Barrett Photography

by Digital Barrett Photography

by Digital Barrett Photography

By Digital Barrett Photography

By Digital Barrett Photography

The below pictures are from @rjnelson785 (Rhonda)This review was posted on MJsBigBlog by “music woman”:
My husband and I were at Casey James’ performance at Kodiak Jack’s in Petaluma last night. Casey put on a kick-a$$ show! His voice was in top form and he guitar playing is second to none! Casey loves playing country blues and had the audience enthralled for almost 2 hours! A set of 15 electric guitar songs and then back for a 4 song acoustic set. If you can get a chance to see him live, do so! Trust me, this is not the Casey James that we saw on American Idol, singing his songs for a mere 90 seconds and having to put his guitar skills on hold. To sum it up, he’s totally awesome and such a nice accessible sweet guy to boot! He’s got a lot of concerts through the end of this month in the western USA, go see him!

NEWS that came out of yesterday:  Casey’s single will be out in about three weeks.  So mark that on your calendars, set your watches, write it on a post-it, tell a friend, make sure you’ve signed up for notification from Amazon, check iTunes and, of course, check back here for details when the single comes out.

Diane aka @deesquared777 took some terrific pictures including the one at the top of this post and these:

Casey singing Drive:

Pictures provided by @marieleathem1

Casey and our own Marie Leathem:

Here are Diane (@deesquared777) and Marie with Casey:

Additional photos from Grace Calles (@rosequeens), see the rest on Facebook:

thanks Stacey McGinnis

Casey and Rhonda

Casey and Rhonda

Recap/review from @blues4me4ever:

He thanked his audience for having him and commented that he’d ridden all the way from LA and it was really pretty the whole way. Almost apologetically, he said “But I’ll start you off with a Texas song and sang LTT.” Just before he sang “You Need Some Texas,” he said he really liked it in the area and …maybe he’d go back and write some songs about California or even get a house in here.  Everyone cheered. You have a good rundown of all of the songs so I won’t repeat them, except to say that he said it was the first time the band had played “Shine Your Shoes” and it was awesome, even though I really like it acoustically.

Somewhere early on in the show he said his single was coming out in around 3 weeks!! He also said he made his light blue guitar and that’s why we don’t see a brand name on it.   Casey’s natural talent really shone with his voice tonight his guitar playing was inventive and spectacular. He’s a pro now!!

Just after Casey began, it seemed like the entire audience looked up and were riveted to the music for the rest of the performance, cheering louder after each song.  I was particularly watching the guys in the audience and he definitely had their attention, clapping, and bobbing their heads and “grooving” to the music – that’s men of all ages.

The ticket guy was standing near and I asked him how he liked Casey now. He said he was really, really good. I asked a couple of locals the same question and they answered that they were surprised that he was so different from Idol.  I think all of the people in the audience who weren’t his fans before the show, were on board after it.

Tweets

chcoolbreeze: @caseyejames enjoyed the show so much at Kodiak Jacks. Heading to Sac tomorrow to see u again! yfrog.com/h48g2fhtj