ACL Live Shot: Lake Street Dive

Sandwiched between the irie sounds of Jimmy Cliff and the scorching hip-hop of Ana Tijoux was Lake Street Dive, the Brooklyn quartet that mashes Americana genres with gusto. Singer Rachael Price worked the ample audience simply by swaying her hips, keenly aware of her status as a bombshell.

“I think it’s fitting we’re in Texas the first time we have someone throw panties onstage,” she nodded, twirling a pair of silky pink unmentionables around her index finger. “That’s very correct.”

While the title track from the group’s recently released third album, Bad Self Portraits, found Price recounting the cheerfully bluesy tale of a jilted woman assuaging her loneliness through amateur art projects, men in the audience began plotting their visits to the autograph tent so that they could finesse a closer encounter with the sultry frontwoman.

Price isn’t in the dive bar alone, however. Bandmate Bridget Kearney delivered an impressively rocking solo on the upright bass, while Mike Olson handled guitar and trumpet solo duties. Whoever was running sound could’ve done the assemblage a solid by turning Olson’s microphone down whenever he whistled into it.

The long set drooped a bit in the middle, suffering from an excess of sameness from song to song. The group snapped its audience back to attention just in time with its smoky, torch-lit rendition of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” which did great justice to Price’s background as an accomplished jazz singer.