Concert Review: Bishop Gunn Go Led Zeppelin At Rockwood

From “Makin It” to “Shine,” Bishop Gunn represented Southern Rock to its core. The Mississippi natives capture the feels and fields that are stapled to the South’s sound; toiling guitar melodies as if they sowed the seeds of their emotions. At Rockwood, they revealed intriguing notes to the heart and exhaustion of an “Alabama” gent.

“I’m in okay shape for the shape I’m in,” sang lead singer Travis McCready, and the lyric exemplified a continuous message in their songs. From “Southern Discomfort” to “The Devil Is A  Woman,” Bishop Gunn sang to the guy who goes through his life because he has a felt duty to his friends and family but no longer dreams for himself. The man with way more issues than resolutions, of which he has become numb to constant imbalance. Yet, Travis’ voice is that man’s companion in his misery. After covering “What Is And Should Never Be,” you felt like Travis was Robert Plant Jr. Like the singing legend, McCready turns emotions into pictures. 

As Bishop Gunn railed their instruments like high-speed trains with no brakes, guys swigged their drinks and head-banged the night away as if they had found the music for their struggles. As Travis riffed on the harmonica like it was the unsung hero to country blued, I kept on envisioning a cowboy stopping his pick-up truck to stare at the stars, sip on a beer, and think, “Ugh.” Yes, I said “Ugh.” Their verses played to the man over-worked by others, yet simultaneously disconnected to them, which is why he no longer cares about Heaven or Hell. All he knows is the earth, and Bishop Gunn’s acoustics writhe in the dirt of it.

Some may think it tragic that a soul does not care for what is spiritually beyond the sky or beneath the ground, while another would think it freeing. Yet, for Bishop Gunn, it is neither. Their songs are gut-busting melodramas dedicated to feeling to stuck to the earth’s and life’s circumstances to believe there is anything beyond it. Thus, your floods over their arrangements and, again, Travis’ voice because they oddly make your feelings of “stuckness” flow away. For More Information on Bishop Gunn Click Here.