By now, the tired and bogus notion that women can't rock as mightily as their male counterparts is quite thoroughly dead and buried. Bands like the sizzling Southern rock sister act Larkin Poe are busy hammering extra nails to that fallacy’s coffin. That became abundantly clear from the first powerhouse and rough housing song of the band's Arlington Theatre show last Sunday.
From the first downbeat of the opening song “Nowhere Fast,” from their brand-spanking-new album Bloom, the band’s saucy Southern energy seized the room on impact, and continued its principle of audience engagement, from rockers to ballads, detouring into an unplugged bluegrassy interlude and back. Up front and centering, donning variations on an ornamental denim theme, lead singer and guitarist Rebecca Lovell belted out the song with her usual fervor and focus, while her sister Megan Lovell showed why she is a respected member of the slide guitar/lap steel/dobro world.
The bedrock-ing rhythm section and keyboardist/guitarist completed the picture of a smart but muscular and earthy new Southern rock aesthetic — at once rootsy and tasty to the core, with thoughtful lyrics in the mix. Needless to say, the Larkin Poe show — opened boldly by the impressive blues-rock-South-in-the-mouth act Parker Millsap — was the rocking-est entry of the current UCSB Arts & Lectures season, although also with a natural folk-rock-Southern alliance with the recent A&L-at-the-Arlington visitor Jason Isbell.