Say, is that a Hearts of Palm nod in the new Lucero video? Why, yessir, it appears that it is.

See also: – Nathan & Stephen: This nine-piece band started out as a simple duo – Nathan & Stephen – Best New Band, Best of Denver 2007 – Nathan & Stephen Ponder Name Change – Q&A with Nathan McGarvey of Hearts of Palm

Have you heard the one about how the dudes in Lucero met Nathan & Stephen at the Westword Music Showcase some five years ago, when the former headlined and the latter played an early-afternoon set on the main stage? Like so many of us, Lucero evidently fell hopelessly under the spell of the much-beloved and now dearly departed outfit. Nathan & Stephen must’ve really made quite an impression on the Memphis boys, so much so that they somehow convinced the group — including Nathan McGarvey, who now hangs his hat in Tennessee, coincidentally — to reconvene for one more show, you know for old time’s sake, up in Boulder, warming up for Lucero.

Perhaps the fellas were a little more smitten than we thought. Witness the new video for “Women and Work.” Around the 38-second mark, you’ll see “Hearts of Palm” scrawled on a white van in red paint. We could be wrong — the guys could be merely name-checking that Idaho album or showing love to the vegetable — but something tells us that the scene is indeed a nod to Nathan & Stephen (or, rather, the outfit’s former handle). If so, that’s pretty damn cool, don’t ya think? Although — and not to spoil the ending or anything — the van does get decimated and then submerged under water. Not sure what to make of that bit of, uh, symbolism.

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