Re-Viewed: Hoyne at The Elbo Room

By Julene McCoy in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 20, 2005 6:32PM

Thursday evening Chicagoist headed back to the Elbo Room to see Hoyne play. We've known lead singer Mike Rizzo (aka Mr. Hoyne) from seeing him solo at open mics at Inner Town Pub and Phyllis' Musical Inn over the last couple of years.

Thursday night was a departure for Hoyne as they had extra people on stage playing sax and violin, as well as a split set between two different drummers due to scheduling difficulties. Even with all these changes the band's sound was fuller and definitely tighter than the show we saw in April. Hoyne describes themselves as bluesy-grunge rock and Mike's gravelly voice perfectly matches this characterization. After a few songs with all the extras and a drummer switch, Hoyne continued with crowd favorites "I Just Wanna Get Inside Your Pants" and "Welcome To My Home". These blues-based songs got everyone dancing around especially to the cover of Nirvana's "Something In The Way".

The surprise of the evening was how much we loved the bass playing of Guy Grace. He blew us away with amazing licks ala Flea or Les Claypool. At times, stealing the show with his stylings. Guy Grace is also in the local act The Dynamos. Ya gotta love that Chicago music scene, when you see one band there's always another one lurking around the corner that needs to be heard and experienced.