American Aquarium Bring Intensity to Final Rev Room Performance

by Julian Spivey

Julian Spivey Photo

American Aquarium made the trek to the Rev Room in Little Rock, Ark., on Saturday, May 10, for the fourth trip to Arkansas in the last eight months, and the fifth overall for frontman B.J. Barham. Arkansas has always been the home away from home for the Raleigh, N.C.-based band. As Barham often says. Little Rock was the first place to make the band feel at home outside of its home state.

​With the recent news that the Rev Room won’t be renewing its lease at year’s end, and may no longer exist altogether, it might have been the band’s final trip to one of two venues in the town it frequents – the other being the White Water Tavern, which seems to be the group’s preferred home, but houses way fewer patrons.

American Aquarium shows are always a couple of hours of heart-pounding, 100 percent effort from the band, featuring fantastic musicianship and incredibly storytelling lyrics from Barham. You can tell just how much Barham and the boys give on stage by the sweat-drenched clothes they wear.

The band opened Saturday’s show with the raucous “Katherine Belle,” a fan-favorite off the 2009 album Dances For The Lonely. It was a perfect way to set the stage for a terrific evening of music.

There were the usual A.A. songs that you’ll see at most of their shows, which the audience likes to shout along to in unison, ranging from classics that have been with the band nearly its entire run, like “I Hope He Breaks Your Heart,” “Casualties,” “St. Mary’s,” and, my personal favorite, “Burn.Flicker.Die.,” which always ends their main set. However, the set almost always includes newer fan favorites like “The Luckier You Get,” too, and it seems “Cherokee Purples,” off last year’s The Fear of Standing Still, is gaining traction as well.

At this point, I’ve seen American Aquarium more than any other act live – this was my fifth time seeing either A.A. or Barham solo since October. It was amazing to me that there were three songs I’d never seen them perform live that they broke out on the setlist on Saturday: “Ramblin’ Ways,” “Family Problems,” and “Louisiana Beauty Queen,” which they ended their show with. It just goes to show you never know what you’re going to get from an American Aquarium show, as Barham will play any song he’s ever written and recorded on any given evening.

One of my favorite A.A. songs is “A Better South,” off the band’s 2020 album Lamentations, which I had seen them perform live before, but they hadn’t played it in Arkansas in some time. Luckily, a friend and co-worker of my wife was photographing Barham before the show and mentioned it was one she wanted to hear. Barham, seemingly always the mensch, fit it into the set. It was special for both of us, and probably my favorite single performance of this show.
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Texan blues singer and guitarist Buffalo Nichols opened the evening and seemed to be battling sound issues throughout his entire set. The set ultimately ended more abbreviated than intended when the venue mistook his show for being over and began playing music over what was to be his final performance, sending him off the stage in a tizzy. Both he and the crowd deserved better. The snafu was one of the more disrespectful moments I’d ever seen a venue do to a musician, but the way he reacted to it was also one of the more disrespectful things I’d ever seen in concert. He honestly didn’t seem like he wanted to be there.