“…we careened wildly down the 22 freeway to the LBC and stopped to drain the main vein at Borders, which is where Backroad Shack yanked our earlobes and dragged us over to the in-store café, where they were playing.

    After a night of fruitless chases, the Shack was exactly what we needed to hear, a perfectly satisfying blues band fronted by a woman who painfully wailed on guitar and tonsils. Their rubber-band-handed bass plucker impressed us with his six-string technique, and we actually witnessed their drummer beat out an entertaining solo, which we didn’t think any band could ever pull off.

    As for the what-the-hell-do-they-sound-like game we sometimes play, imagine the Indigo Girls  having  an  orgy  with  the Allman Brothers Band (yeah, like that would ever happen), with Stevie Ray Vaughan snapping pictures (we thought of Vaughan when they nailed a joyously greasy “Tightrope” cover, solos and all).

    If Backroad Shack had played A Night in Fullerton, we would’ve had reason to stick around.”