SUSTO – Live From Codfish Hollow (2024)
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Earlier this week, Susto teased a surprise, and it turned out to be a full live album recorded at Fine2Day Fest at Codfish Hollow Barnstormers in Maquoketa, Iowa September 8-9 2023. I knew it was going to be new music, but I was expecting a remix or something. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a live album, and even more glad to hear that it sounds amazing — both sonically and performance-wise.
The live album features 24 tracks with a runtime of over an hour and a half, and includes all of Susto’s most popular songs from all five Susto albums, plus some deep cuts, and even a couple of fun covers.
Overall, it sounds like a massively fun time, and is filled with highlight performances of some of my favorite songs by the band. The room sounds warm and the crowd sounds like they are having as much fun as the band. I’ve always wanted to catch a Susto show at Codfish Hollow, everybody says the venue is incredible. It is literally an old barn out in the middle of the country, where you can camp out and see live music. And apparently, they also have an excellent soundsystem and acoustics.
Live Album Highlights
Instead of doing a full track-by-track, I’m going to point out a few of my personal highlights from the album. I encourage checking the whole album out, because it’s good stuff.
My first highlight from the live album is an obvious choice: “Hard Drugs.” This is such a tender song of friendship and hard times that really resonates with people. I remember the first time that I heard this song, it was on their Audiotree live sessions, before it ended up on their second album & I’m Fine Today (2017), and it was an instant favorite for myself and a whole lot of other people who were lucky enough to know about it. Three albums later and it remains one of their most powerful songs.
“Rock On,” track 7 from the live album comes from the band’s latest studio album, My Entire Life (2023). Personally I found this record to be their best studio effort since Fine Today, and “Rock On” is made for the live setting. It’s about this idealized, fast-and-furious lifestyle of a rock star, that seems at least loosely based on Susto’s career and life on the road. They play it really well here and make you feel like you’re part of that story.
“Double Rainbow” is a standout track from 2021’s Time in the Sun that is always a fun one to hear live. The song is very much classic Susto in that it questions religion and grapples with existential dread. “Double Rainbow” juxtaposes that introspection with a jubilant rock & roll sound and an extremely catchy refrain. Johnny Delaware rips an extended solo on this one in the outro.
They have some fun with “La Mia,” which you can hear them talking about at the end of “Break Free, Rolling Stone,” during the “Susto Unplugged” portion of the set which also included “Gay in the South.” They discuss how they hadn’t been playing “La Mia” on tour and they had never done it unplugged. I thought it sounded awesome.
“Cosmic Cowboy” is a fantastic Susto singalong from Fine Today, that has long been one of my favorite Susto songs. I said when I wrote a review of that album back in 2017 that it was a “goddamn new age Southern rock & roll anthem”, and I still agree with that statement. This version of the song brings out the harmonica and is a ton of fun, as always, especially the “always saying fuck the cops” part. The crowd echo in the barn is palpable, as I’m certainly not the only one who knows all the words to this song.
Later on, we have “Life is Suffering” which is in my opinion the best song on Time in the Sun and one of the best overall Susto songs. It’s a really comfortable sounding-song, and the energy in the barn and the warmth of the recording really lends itself to that comfort. Lyrically, it is not quite as comfortable, but it is very heartfelt and relatable.
“Smoking Outside” is the cream of the crop. From the debut Susto album (2014), this has the distinction of being the first Susto song I ever heard, and it remains one of my favorites to this day. I have always thought that it deserved to be jammed out more than it usually gets jammed out, and they deliver that here with a 9 minute performance of the classic song.
Later, we hear covers of “Don’t Look Back in Anger” by Oasis, “Video Games” by Lana Del Rey (featuring Judy Blank), and finally, the always chill “Jah Werx” to send it on home.
Not only is this one of the strongest live albums in Susto’s growing collection, it also offers 24 compelling reasons to buy a ticket to the next Fine2Day Fest. If this is how they’re going to play there? Sign me up.
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