As I was watching this performance from Jonny Lang and his band, I couldn't help but find my mind wandering to a particularly great scene from Terry Zwigoff's adaptation of the graphic novel Ghost World.

In it, Steve Buscemi's character is in a garishly-lit sports bar watching a frail humble man play some acoustic blues music - just him and a guitar. Following them is a bunch of hyperactive white kids who do their gamey impression of the blues, even making reference to "picking cotton" at one point.

Of course, this scene is simply for effect, emphasizing in a rather outlandish fashion the garishness of the modern world, but watching Jonny Lang's aggreived facial expressions and raw, hungry need for attention from this French crowd, that brief moment in the film became even more prescient in my mind. 

Like that heinous racket spewed out in a few seconds of screen time, Jonny Lang and his band are play acting an art form that is well above their pay grade. Every one of these performers are brilliant musicians, but throughout this hour long performance, they wanted to make that fact abudantly clear to anyone within earshot of the stage. Outrageous solos from every member of the group was the order of the day and, not surprisingly, the crowd ate it up. 

Putting showiness and adrenaline in place of authenticity is a dangerous thing, and I think that Lang and his band - at this point in his young career - prove that maxim quite clearly here, particularly during their run through the Sonny Boy Williamson classic "Good Morning Little School Girl". All the salaciousness and grit was washed right out of the song by Lang, in place of a stomping, pleading, hammy exercise in futility. 

I give them points for style, but it is there that my compliments will cease.