And cowriting “Always a Friend” allowed him to play that blast of an Alejandro Escovedo song.
The Mission Express, named after the bus line in front of his San Francisco house, didn’t sound rusty at all. Keyboardist Stephanie Finch on keyboards and backing vocals makes a nice counterpoint for her frontman husband. She soloed on Dorsey Burnett’s “Hey Little One” and played accordion on a couple of key songs late in the set, including “The Left Hand and the Right Hand.”
Prophet is a very good guitarist, who showcased his style only a couple of times, leaving the lead mostly to James DePrato, who did a lot of slide work. The two would often team up on doubled solos that sounded like nods to Southern rock.
And the behatted rhythm section of drummer Vincente Rodriguez and bassist Kevin White kept things solid.
The inveterate touring rocker, Prophet knows a little bit about a show’s pacing, and brought things to a rousing end with his salute to the “Ford Econoline” and the emphatically participatory “You Did (Bomp Shooby Dooby Bomp).”
That brought an encore in which finally, the audience he had described as a “supper club / PTA configuration” was on its feet, abandoning the unnecessary tables and chairs for a celebratory “In the Mausoleum” and “Willie Mays is Up at Bat.”
Opening the show was young San Francisco singer/songwriter Matt Jaffe who brought an extravagant, nearly-Flamenco acoustic guitar style, songs that lingered a little too long, and what Prophet described as “mostly hair.” Primarily, he never rose above the audacious move of preceding his set by blasting the overblown fanfare of “Thus Spake Zarathustra” from “2001: A Space Oddity,” an overreach only Elvis could get away with.
The setlist for Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express Sunday was:
- “Bobby Fuller Died for Your Sins”
- “Come On Over”
- “Lodi” / “Wish Me Luck”
- “High as Johnny Thunders”
- “Coming Out in Code”
- “Castro Halloween”
- “Nixonland”
- “Run Primo Run”
- “Killing Machine”
- “You and Me Baby (Holding On)”
- “Hey Little One”
- “Always a Friend”
- “Summertime Thing”
- “The Left Hand and the Right Hand”
- “Marathon”
- “Ford Econoline”
- “You Did (Bomp Shooby Dooby Bomp)”
- “In the Mausoleum”
- “Willie Mays is Up at Bat”