Visiting Austin is not complete without one stop at the Continental Club. On Thanksgiving night meli and I went to see Dale Watson and his Lone Stars. Watson was sporting his famous white pompadour and shiny white teeth. Every so often he did a “commercial” for Lone Star beer, where he would hold up the beer and talk about its properties (such as being negative calories) and then a big white light would shine on him as he said, “Lone Star.” The UT team lost that day so there was a lot of commiserating from the stage.

The crowd was a mix of young and old listening to his authentic original country music. There was plenty of very good Texas two-steppers and some not so good. Others were swing dancing, which didn’t really fit the music but they were having a good time. The room was crowded when we first arrived just after 11pm and Watson had just taken the stage. Of course, the tallest men in the room chose to stand in front of us. As the night wore on, the crowd thinned and we got a better look at the band. The Lone Stars are Chris Crepps (stand-up bass), Don Pawlak (pedal steel), and Mike Bernal (drums).

I love real country music so I was very happy to listen to Watson. One of his songs is “I Lie When I Drink,” which he performed early in the set. Later on someone yelled the song out as a request. Watson said he’d already performed the song and obviously that guy wasn’t there. So he did the song again for him. It was very funny.

Watson had two women come up individually to sing with him and Cory Braun on fiddle to perform as guests. Watson promised not to do any Christmas songs and let Thanksgiving have its own holiday. After midnight all bets were off and we heard some country Christmas songs.

meli and I decided to leave at almost 1:30am and Watson was still going strong.

By Carene Lydia Lopez