If you’re going to play in Texas, you don’t necessarily “gotta have a fiddle in the band,” at least not in the great state’s current musical landscape.  What you “gotta have” is great songs, and most importantly, 100% complete command on the stage.  This is a battle, and you have a slew of opposing forces working against you including drunken chaos, popularity contests among the crowd and stiff competition performing down the street.  Your command for attention has to rise above the fray, and like a magnet, draw the swarming forces to the front of the stage with arms raised in obedient surrender, and hanging on your every word.  Music fans want to be ruled.  It is in their very musical biology to be this way and they will not be truly contented by anything less.  Nick Verzosa and the Noble Union have never met a music venue they didn’t like and have never left the stage without acquiring a room full of newly dedicated fans.  Is it the classic country throb that pulsates off the Richter scale in their drivin’ tunes?  Is it the rockabilly attitude that wafts off the stage weakening the proud spirits like school kids to peer pressure?  Is it the clever lyrical prose that instantly downloads into your internal jukebox and plays on repeat?  Is it the way Verzosa can come down on the audience, channeling Conway Twitty, in spoken word phrasing that seduces even the rowdiest of listeners?  It’s all of it.  And if you are still in doubt of this band’s ability to own the room, you can experience it for yourself in the band’s 2013 live recording LIVE AT THE THIRSTY ARMADILLO.