Mike Futcher

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The Never-Ending Note: Roger Sayer Performs Interstellar Live

November 24, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Friday 8th November 2024

Blackburn Cathedral, Blackburn, England

Though the relationship has been a troubled one, there is an affinity between the world of the church and spiritual matters, and the world of science and futurism. Historically less acknowledged by the church (think Galileo and the Inquisition), it has increasingly been embraced as Christianity has mellowed – or been tamed – in the West. Nowadays, the affinity is less acknowledged by the scientists, for any admission of metaphysical depths can be seen to stray from science’s core tenet of rationality.

The relationship is not only historical – astronomy’s early nurturing under ecclesiastical patronage, for example – but conceptual. The yearnings of people throughout the millennia to look to the heavens, to understand the firmament, possesses many of the same inclinations as the scientific quest to reach for space. Indeed, it could even be that the first religious ideas in early man were seeded by the sight of those stars in the sky.

It is a conceptual synergy that has been embraced by Blackburn Cathedral, which hosts tonight’s suite of music from the 2014 science-fiction film Interstellar. The church organ will be played by Roger Sayer, who played the organ on the original score after being approached by composer Hans Zimmer. In his Q&A session tonight, Roger remarks to the audience that the organ itself looks something like a spaceship. Its vast pipes clamber up the walls of the cathedral and the effect of regal otherworldliness, of celestial visitation, is enhanced by the vast crown of thorns, designed by John Hayward, which hovers suspended over the organ.

So compelling is the scene – and soon, the music – that one can almost forget about the vast Moon suspended above. In the nave, above the seats of the congregation, a gigantic replica sphere of the Moon draws the eye, and I am able to find a seat almost directly beneath it. I could almost reach up and touch it.

This, of course, is precisely the same thought one has for the real Moon when it stands bright in the sky and looks almost close enough to touch, a tantalising feeling which has surely provoked much of mankind’s wanderlust for the stars. I sit in my pew and look up at the swaying marias, for the installation rocks gently, almost imperceptibly, on its strings. I recall Galileo’s famous remark about a different sphere: “And yet, it moves.”

So too does the music. When Roger Sayer is announced, to applause, and takes his seat at the organ, his back is to the audience. It matters not – the visual treat of the church architecture provides tonight’s theatre. As the organ summons, almost cinematically, its first huge intake of air, those of us in the audience have all this vast majesty to contemplate, rather than the seated figure of the organist.

The first music of the night isn’t Hans Zimmer’s score from Interstellar. The dean of the chapel had earlier announced that this would not take place until after the Q&A and intermission. Instead, Roger begins with a suite of music from Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. As those distinctive, majestic notes begin for ‘Sunrise’, better known as the iconic music from 2001: A Space Odyssey, we are reminded that this conceptual affinity between science and religion, between space and the firmament, is not an idle one. It is one that has been recognised (if not always acknowledged) by many artists. I consider myself one of them, though of course a minor one; my science-fiction novel Void Station One was initially conceived of as a purely rational, indeed atheistic, story, but ended with a completely unexpected – even to me, as the writer – welcoming of the concept of a god.

For his part, Roger Sayer reinforces this graceful affinity with a second suite of music from Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Again, to uncultured philistines like myself this music is best known for inspiring some of John Williams’ motifs for Star Wars, particularly in the first part of the suite, ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’.

Unfortunately, my ear cannot catch any of these, nor any of the nuances Roger Sayer has delivered in his two suites of organ music so far. A young couple who sat themselves directly in front of me moments before the music started have been gossiping amongst themselves throughout, ducking their heads and whispering and giggling. Considering this is music to focus on and contemplate, their behaviour is immensely distracting.

I tell myself that soon they must settle, but instead they begin to fidget in the pews, the wood squeaking relentlessly and disrupting the music for those of us unfortunate to be sat near them. I spend the majority of ‘Venus, the Bringer of Peace’ contemplating war, and ‘Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity’ despairing that the entire night of music is passing me by.

I sigh and mentally add it to my unfortunately ever-growing record of poor concert behaviour, but my attempt to resume concentration on the music is interrupted by a loud “Pssch-thock!” sound. The male of the couple has opened a can of beer that he has smuggled into the church. The loud, disruptive sound prompts more giggles from the pair. As the grand, celestial organ music brings to mind the concept of musica universalis, these two have reminded me that while Heaven may be in the spheres, Hell is other people.

Roger Sayer’s suite of Holst’s music ends, to applause, and the couple decide to leave their seats during the brief intermission. I assumed this would be a bathroom break, or perhaps they intend to nip to the local off-licence, but whatever the motive, thankfully a miracle occurs in the cathedral. The pair do not return, and the rest of the night is uninterrupted.

The next part of the night is a Q&A with Roger Sayer, who has approached from his organ to address the audience. It is a fascinating session, as Roger details his role in the development of the music for Interstellar a decade ago. Roger had no hand in its creation by Hans Zimmer, but the composer came to him to use the organ at Temple Church in London. Zimmer had made samples of music using the organ at Salisbury Cathedral, not realising that each church organ produces its own unique sound, and his samples could not be adequately recreated at Temple Church.

Roger Sayer is in his element here; he speaks eloquently about the organ as an instrument, about the pipes and the bellows and the keys and pedals and the configuration of stops which produce each unique organ note. At the end of the night, after the music ends and the crowd disperses, those of us who remain find we can approach the altar for a closer look. With its keys and pedals and stops, with sheet music propped up as a map through the aural terrain ahead, the organ looks like the pilot’s console of a spaceship, as Roger had suggested earlier.

As it breathes, Roger says, the organ in effect provides a never-ending note; his stops and keys manipulating the sound as the vast intake of air is expelled through the pipes and a reservoir of breath is pulled in by the bellows. This was one of the reasons why it was so apposite for Zimmer’s Interstellar score: not only the sensation of breath in the airless void of outer space but, in travelling seamlessly from the highest note to the lowest, the instrument can convey the vast sense of distance depicted in the spacefaring film.

When Roger does return to his seat, after a twenty-minute interval, and begins the final movement of the night, the score for Interstellar, it is that highest note he begins on – and which, a remarkable passage of music later, he will end the night on. This is also the note which the film began and ended on as the credits played, and I find that Roger’s Q&A session has served as a valuable primer on some of the nuances of the music I am now to experience.

Interstellar is one of my favourite movies. Epic, inspiring, rational and beautiful, it was one of the primary inspirations for my own novel, Void Station One. A month ago I managed to expunge one of the small errors of my life when I got the opportunity to watch the majesty of the film for the first time in the cinema, on its tenth anniversary. I had been unable to do so when it was first released as I did not have any money at the time, and I always regretted it.

On that anniversary rewatch, still fresh in my mind, I felt goosebumps as it opened onto that dusty bookcase in Murph’s room and the first distinctive motif from ‘Dreaming of the Crash’ by Hans Zimmer began to play. I feel the same again tonight in the cathedral as Roger Sayer begins to play the same motif, which throughout the movie keeps this daunting, cerebral paean to astrophysics grounded in the tender, longing father-daughter relationship between Cooper and Murph.

As Roger moves expertly through the wealth of music of Interstellar, I am able to lose myself in it, mapping the notes onto the scenes I know so well. The lonesome, tragic void of ‘Stay’ as Cooper leaves his daughter and travels the silent void of space. The questing brio as our astronauts enter ‘The Wormhole’. The forbidding natural terror as they realise what those ‘Mountains’ really are. The thrilling triumph of willpower and skill that is communicated in ‘No Time for Caution’.

“Cooper, what are you doing?” “Docking.”

The context of the cathedral puts the music back into a classical setting, allowing us to see it as the masterpiece it is. Just as Strauss’ famous music was written to soundtrack a ‘Sunrise’, so too does Zimmer’s work stir the soul even when removed from the film it accompanied. In my writing, whether that is in my fiction or in my reviews, I am often prone to lamenting the loss of talent in our modern culture, the ways in which we fail to match up to the mores and standards of our civilisation’s brighter days. Tonight, Roger Sayer has reminded me that remarkable things are still happening in our art and music. Those inquisitive, ethereal notes of ‘Day One’ deserves to reverberate throughout the centuries, and be played by hands that have not yet been born, in times – perhaps spacefaring ones – that have not yet come to pass.

At the end of the night – having ended, as promised, on the highest note – Roger turns to the audience to receive the deserved applause. He bows and then turns, raising his hands to the majesty of the organ. In his Q&A, he had mentioned that the original score was actually six organs playing at once. Such amplification of power I experienced in the cinema, but tonight Roger’s solitary organ has sufficed to deliver the most profound and most majestic and also the quietest, most sombre aspects of the score.

In that same Q&A, Roger had said he would not perform the full score of the film – which would be hours long, too much perhaps even for a dedicated Interstellar fan like myself – but instead a condensed version of it that he first transcribed a decade ago for a rendition at the Royal Albert Hall. In all that time playing Interstellar’s music, he says, “I never tire of it.”

After the music ends and the audience has filtered out into Blackburn town, I head out into the autumn night and look up at the dark sky. So compelling has been the cathedral and the music that I had almost forgotten about the vast Moon suspended above, and yet it had always been there, that satellite reminder that there are worlds yet to explore. Like Roger, I would not tire of Interstellar’s music and its enterprising spirit. One must also hope that humanity never tires of the yearning and fascination with the outer worlds that inspired Interstellar’s creation. Perhaps then we will one day find mankind among the stars.

As I head down the stone path of the church grounds I stop and look back. The cathedral is welcoming, eternally welcoming, with the warm light pouring out of its doors. While it is not as singular a building as York Minster, which I visited prior to a previous concert just a few months ago, Blackburn Cathedral rests in that remarkable spot many of our stone churches reside: havens of tradition, an anchor against the rapid developmental change that churns through the rest of our towns; architecture from when that word was synonymous with art rather than economy.

As the organ notes of Interstellar continue to thread themselves through my mind, I find myself thinking looking at the stone building and thinking that if art is how we decorate the space we hold, music must surely be how we decorate our time.* And the same harmony between space and time that scientists identify in an equation is something that we can understand intuitively on nights like tonight.

Setlist:

  1. Suite No. 1 – Also Sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss)
  2. Suite No. 2 – The Planets (Gustav Holst)
    • Mars, the Bringer of War
    • Venus, the Bringer of Peace
    • Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
  3. Q&A and Intermission
  4. Suite No. 3 – Interstellar (Hans Zimmer)

* This quote is often attributed to Jean-Michel Basquiat.

A Puncher’s Chance: Marcus King Live in Manchester

November 15, 2024 /

Wednesday 6th November 2024

Albert Hall, Manchester, England

The evening starts, ominously, on a sour note. At 6:40 p.m., twenty minutes before doors, a steward steps out to speak to those of us who are at the front of the queue, waiting patiently in the autumn chill.

“Hi guys, just so you know, there’s no support act tonight. The main act will come on at 8:45 p.m.”

The steward moves away and repeats the same to those further down the line. Still within earshot, I crane my head back to make sure I had heard him right. Many in the queue grumble, early birds rewarded with no worms. Some peel off to go find a bar or a place to eat. All of a sudden I have two hours to kill.

I look up at Marcus King’s name lit up on the board outside the Manchester Albert Hall and contemplate leaving entirely. While I’ve been a fan of King’s music for years I’m not one of his devotees, and I had bought a ticket for tonight largely out of curiosity. I retained the hope that, as with other gigs I’ve attended, the live setting would allow for a different perspective that would deepen my connection to the artist. Coming just twenty-four hours after I attended a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds concert that raised the bar for my understanding of the magnificence a live act can generate, Marcus King already had a Herculean task to not make his own night feel ordinary in comparison. A vastly unfair comparison, to be sure, but the steward’s announcement – the management’s decision – has not made it easier.

There had been no communication in the days or hours beforehand that this would be how it was, and whether it’s a last-minute change or something that was always in place (we’re not told the reason), it seems a poor way to treat fans who queue for a show that states doors are at 7 p.m. Based on the grumbles I hear, I’m not the only one to feel this way. As one man puts it, “why would he not just go on a bit earlier? Say, at 8 o’clock?”

For my part, I of course decide to stay – this would be a peculiar review if I hadn’t. I bury my feelings of pique deep but, when the doors open at seven, no one sees much of a need to rush inside. The night is not especially cold and we’ve not been made to feel any warmth. In the shuffle of the crowd, two men who had been queuing behind me have found their way, by honest means, in front of me. They stop themselves and apologise, but I allow them to go ahead. We agree with a rueful smile that there’s no need for haste.

Inside, I make my way up to the balcony area and settle down on the step seating, my back against the rear wall. The next hour and forty-five minutes pass slowly. As the venue fills with people and the people fill the time with chatter, music plays out over the sound system. There’s a litany of soul music – ‘I’m a Ram’ by Al Green, ‘Family Affair’ by Sly and the Family Stone – as well as some left-turns (‘Caught Between the Moon and New York City’ by Christopher Cross sneaks in there). Though it passes slowly, the time admittedly passes easier than I thought it would when the steward made King’s announcement. But I still can’t help but feel that the stereo fills ears where an opening act should be. Whatever the reason for the decision, it reflects poorly on those involved.

Fortunately, the audience never seems to grow unduly restless, and by the time Marcus King and his band do finally arrive on stage it is to hearty cheers. And when they begin to play, all is forgiven.

It’s hard to review the set of music that we are delivered here in Manchester’s Albert Hall tonight. Partly this is because of the loose jam nature of the music, incorporating soul, blues rock and a bit of country into a relentless stream of aural goodness. But it is also partly because Marcus and his band dive straight into that stream, plunging deep with the opener ‘The Well’ and scarcely coming up for air for the rest of the night.

‘Hero’ and ‘Beautiful Stranger’ are early highlights, and by the time of the eighth song, ‘Rita is Gone’, one of my favourites, it is possible to start to form an opinion. “Rita is gone,” Marcus sings, in that classic soulful wail of his, and so is The Marcus King Band. Only drummer Jack Ryan remains of the original line-up that played this song on the self-titled album from 2016. The replacements are stellar – Eric Vogel on bass and Mike Runyon on keys, while Drew Smithers plays like Duane Allman reborn on electric guitar – but I do find myself rueing that I missed out on that original incarnation live; the bursting, exuberant potential that still came through on the studio recordings. It felt very much like The Marcus King Band, rather than Marcus King and his band, which is how tonight feels. A band in synergy capitalised in name, in contrast to a band that is subject to its King. One which tore through ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Wrong with That’ and the songs on the Due North EP.

This is not to speak against the music tonight, which is excellent, but more a comment on where Marcus King is at this moment in time. The albums that King has created since he decided to release as a solo artist have taken time to grow on me, in contrast to that astonishing immediacy of the earlier Marcus King Band records. It is why my decision to attend tonight came from curiosity and from a hope to deepen my connection to the artist, rather than the kid-on-Christmas-Eve excitement I’ve felt ahead of other gigs. It feels like we’re not necessarily seeing Marcus King at his peak, but in a holding pattern. One only has to look to another young guitar virtuoso given to live band jams to see how King may not have seized his moment in the way some of his contemporaries have – Billy Strings has gone stratospheric where King has, in some ways, stalled.

This is reflected in the songs. While the band tears through the setlist, a mix of covers and original material both new and old, with considerable skill, soul and jam-band dexterity, I can’t help but feel like Marcus King doesn’t yet have that one knockout song that will floor you and leave you asking for more. ‘Goodbye Carolina’, played towards the end of the set sweet and pure, comes close, but the specialness of the music tonight comes from the band’s sometimes soulful, sometimes storming play on each number, rather than any one number proving itself prime.

To write such things seems strange when the band is on the stage, rocking and swinging through a heady brew of soul, blues and country. ‘8 a.m’. Merle Haggard’s ‘Workin’ Man Blues’. A short but resonating acoustic cover of Tyler Childers’ ‘Shake the Frost’. A one-two-three punch of songs from the Mood Swings albums, every swing a hit. The music thrills everyone in the hall, myself included. King might lack that one knockout song – for now – but he’s a solid hitter who always stands a puncher’s chance.

The band save their best for last, the final song of the main set a storming extended cover of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Moby Dick’that allows each musician a moment to shine, whether that is Eric Vogel’s slapping bass solo or Jack Ryan’s powerful drum solo. The synergy continues into the deserved encore: ‘Wildflowers and Wine’, a slow and soulful piece of gold from El Dorado, rolls straight into a lusty cover of the Percy Sledge classic ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’, featuring a great, showy “guitar hero” solo from King.

The final song of the night sees the band cut loose on a cover of The Allman Brothers’ ‘Ramblin’ Man’, with King shoehorning Manchester into the lyrics (to cheers) and trading some thrilling guitar lines with his Skydog regen Drew Smithers. As the song continues to play, King leads the audience in praise of each of the musicians in turn. For his part, Jack Ryan raises his hand in acknowledgement without missing a beat.

The song ends to roars and cheers. King throws his guitar pick into the crowd like a coin into a fountain. His puncher’s chance has come up trumps, and he raises his cowboy hat in salute. He and his band have hit hard tonight. As the crowd filters out into the Manchester night, I find myself thinking that if I am right and Marcus King has not peaked, has not yet done his best work, then that should excite all those who venture to hear good music.

Setlist:*

(all songs from the album Mood Swings and written by Marcus King, unless noted)

  1. The Well (Marcus King/Dan Auerbach/Ronnie Bowman) (from El Dorado)
  2. Sin’s a Good Man’s Brother (Mark Farner) (unreleased)
  3. Hero (King/Auerbach)
  4. 24 Hours at a Time (Toy Caldwell) (unreleased)
  5. Beautiful Stranger (King/Auerbach/Paul Overstreet) (from El Dorado)
  6. This Far Gone (King/Tobias Jesso Jr.)
  7. Inglewood Motel (Halestorm) (King/Peter Levin)
  8. Rita is Gone (from The Marcus King Band)
  9. Are You Ready for the Country? (Neil Young) (unreleased)
  10. 8 a.m. (from Carolina Confessions)
  11. Workin’ Man Blues (Merle Haggard) (unreleased)
  12. Honky Tonk Hell (King/Gabe Lee) (unreleased)
  13. Save Me
  14. Mood Swings
  15. Bipolar Love
  16. Die Alone (unreleased)
  17. Shake the Frost (Tyler Childers) (unreleased)
  18. Goodbye Carolina (from Carolina Confessions)
  19. Fuck My Life Up Again (King/Dexter Wansel)
  20. Lie Lie Lie (King/Auerbach) (from Young Blood)
  21. Moby Dick (Jimmy Page/John Paul Jones/John Bonham) (unreleased)
  22. Encore: Wildflowers and Wine (King/Auerbach/Bowman) (from El Dorado)
  23. Encore: When a Man Loves a Woman (Calvin Lewis/Andrew Wright) (unreleased)
  24. Encore: Ramblin’ Man (Dickey Betts) (unreleased)

* according to setlist.fm

Extra Ecclesiam Omnis Salus: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Live in Manchester

November 10, 2024 /

Tuesday 5th November 2024

Manchester Arena, Manchester, England

“Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. Outside the Church there is no salvation.”

Catholic doctrine, from the writings of saint cyprian

“Cave stalks the stage… While he evokes a tent preacher, he is also sexual, gothic, and his message, unlike an Old Testament preacher, damns no one.”

Darcey Steinke, in ‘Stranger Than Kindness’, 2020

In the concert reviews I have written over the last couple of years, mostly covering the exciting emergence of quality in the country and roots scene, I have occasionally made reference to a line by Walter Pater that all art aspires to the condition of music. This I have cited as my caveat that writing about music often ends up destroying the magic in it, turning the experience of sung gold into mute and lumpen lead.

Nevertheless, I have persisted in writing reviews for all of the concerts I have attended since. There are many reasons for this, but one reason I have always found valuable is that the writing allows me to explore something I have not yet worked out, some truth or quality that I experienced in the performance which I can only identify when reviewing afterwards.

So what to do, then, when the music you have heard live is so potent, the performance itself so perfect an expression, or representation, of those intangible truths, that a written record is both necessary but also doomed to failure? Tonight brings forth a condition of music that all other art not only aspires to but cannot hope to reproduce. Powerful and yet tender, strutting and yet fragile, profane and profound, epic and cinematic, intimate and full of energy, possessing of both joy and pain, and succeeding in creating an experience that is impossible for this review to give even a bare facsimile of. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds provide a musical epiphany on the Manchester stage tonight. At times it feels like glory in its purest form.

No doubt this will seem like hyperbole to some, but there is something in great music that stirs us on a deeper level, and I have never heard it brought forth as vividly as it has been tonight. After the engrossing experimental soundscape provided by the opening act Black Country, New Road (lead vocalist Georgia Ellery and bassist Tyler Hyde look iconic on the large black-and-white screens of the Arena), the audience is well-primed for the main act of transcendence which is to follow.

When they do take the stage to roars and applause, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds do not so much blossom as burst into flower, as immediate and exuberant as if it were the First Day of Creation. I confess now, with some shame, that the new Wild God album didn’t completely win me over when I first listened to it on release day, but in a live setting its songs are beyond intoxicating. The first three songs tonight – ‘Frogs’, ‘Wild God’ and ‘Song of the Lake’ – are all from that record and (as Nick Cave is on record as suggesting) they are indescribably epic live. A large screen behind the band flashes up with occasional lyrics, emphatic punctuation to the grandest moments. “Bring your spirit down!” it flashes during ‘Wild God’, with Nick pumping his fist. The audience is already captured by the exhilarating sensory wave. They stun animals for the slaughter with less force than Cave and the band have come out with tonight.

The Bad Seeds seem to be brimming with energy. They have been rampaging across Britain and Europe since September and will land on American shores in April next year. Our cup runneth over; alongside the usual figures of bassist and guitarist and keyboardist there are two percussionists (Larry Mullins looks to be having the time of his life) and four gospel singers in shining robes. There is also the long-bearded Warren Ellis, wild and free, the epitome of a crazy genius. Tonight he will be leaping and reclining and playing a thrilling distorted violin sound like a Hendrix of the homeless classes.

And at the front, rushing throughout the night from the piano to the catwalk, reaching out into the crowd to grasp at hands that reach out like Joshua trees, is Cave himself. He is in complete command of the legion of men and women in the arena tonight. He is vulnerable and seeking and compelling in his art, but also matchlessly confident. At one point in the night he leans into the audience, propped up by the hands, and gives his microphone to one outstretched hand, secure in the knowledge that when he is finished with his gestures the mike will still be there to seize. He dances and yells, sings and whispers, stalks and struts and sinks to his knees. So complete is his connection with the crowd that it reminds us that this Renaissance man – composer, author, poet, artist, screenwriter, compassionate conductor of the Red Hand Files – is first and foremost a rock star, in the finest meaning of the word. He is an icon and a conduit.

The view of the Balcony Man. (“You balcony people,” Nick had gestured earlier in the show.)

Could anything be gained if I were to write a blow-by-blow account of the night, as I have for other concerts? Others have done so, and done so well, but for me in recollection of the night, every moment seems to press upon one another. Time seems to collapse in on itself like a glorious star. There is the rollicking rhythm of songs like ‘From Her to Eternity’ and the doom-laden ‘Tupelo’, which seems to almost summon up a thunderstorm beneath the dome of the arena. There is the resonance of the lyrics (“a ten tonne catastrophe on a sixty-pound chain” rolls off Nick’s tongue emphatically on ‘Jubilee Street’) and the warm humour with which Nick addresses the audience between songs.

There is the emotional, hard-won lament of ‘O Children’, about Cave’s realisation that “we cannot protect our children” from the world, a message that is poignant not only for the well-known tragedies his family suffered in the years after penning those lyrics, but because it is sung here, in the Manchester Arena, a place where children were once murdered by a man who saw himself in service of a far wilder god. “Lift up your voice,” the gospel choir sing, and it is as though the song recognises that horror will always come and that to acknowledge this is enough. (“There’s either a remedy or there is none, and if there is none, never mind”, Nick sang in ‘Song of the Lake’). Wisdom comes when you realise that armour does not work, after a lifetime spent forging it. Only then can you make peace with things, recognising that wounds will come but trusting in your ability to heal.

There is also the tenderness of ‘Long Dark Night’ and ‘Carnage’, and the unnerving malevolence of ‘White Elephant’, sounding as stark and real as the earlier vibrant chants of “You’re beautiful!” from ‘Conversion’, a refrain which is repeated by Cave at the end of the show. There are the high, pure vocals of Warren Ellis, like a castrato with balls, on ‘Bright Horses’, and the basking in the familiarity of old favourites ‘The Mercy Seat’, ‘Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry’ and ‘The Weeping Song’, the latter two in the night’s impressive encore.

There is the distinctive chiming of ‘Red Right Hand’, a gloriously dark crowd-pleaser, into which Cave inserts one of his many implorations for fans to get off their phones (“he’s in your stupid little screen”, he sings, gesturing to one concert-goer). These calls to live in the moment, not through the screen, are all delivered charmingly from the stage, and for my part I only take enough photos to colour my review. Cave’s flattering yet insistent, good-cop, bad-cop approach seems to me better than Bob Dylan’s approach in Liverpool a couple of nights earlier, when phones were required to be locked away in pouches. Cave persuades the majority of us; his show is so astonishing that to seek to capture the night seems like sacrilege.

Sacrilege.

The night also manages to hold the vulnerability of ‘I Need You’, played solo by Nick Cave at the piano. The song seems to age this energetic figure in the blink of an eye; its prescient, pleading lyrics of “Just breathe” as raw as they must have been when recorded amidst the family tragedy of Skeleton Tree, “that night we wrecked like a train”.

But above all there is, remarkably, the passion and revelation of the new songs from the Wild God album; the ferociously loving and transcendent music of ‘Cinnamon Horses’, ‘Final Rescue Attempt’ (“oh, the rain, oh, the rain”) and the appropriately-named ‘Joy’. If you delve into the religious and spiritual writings of which Nick Cave is himself deeply invested, you may come across the terror of angels; the idea that the full love of God is impossible to bear, that real joy is a flame impossible to behold. All art aspires to the condition of music because music is the one that brings us closest to beholding this eternal joy; it touches us more simply and profoundly and overwhelmingly than anything else can.

It is this which Nick Cave has managed to harness, delivered most assuredly through his newer songs but also embracing his older catalogue, with well-known songs that are decades old, written with other motives, brought into the host and shown to belong to this eternal quest for joy and release that underpins all artistic expression. In my review of Faith, Hope and Carnage, Nick Cave’s latest book, I wrote that in his art Cave is not so much stumbling around in the dark as stumbling around in the overwhelming light, and that light is on full show tonight.

It is an intensity felt by everyone; by those of us in the crowd and by those on stage and by Cave himself. The final song of the encore sees Nick Cave alone at the piano under a solitary spotlight, singing ‘Into My Arms’ from The Boatman’s Call. Our dark pilot through hidden waters gestures towards the audience, trusting us to finish off his song. The final verse is sung touchingly by the crowd, converted now into the church invisible. Accompanied by Nick on the piano, the final note is a perfect rest, proving that, contrary to Catholic doctrine, extra Ecclesiam omnis salus – outside the Church, there is every salvation. Even, perhaps, for those who remain on their phones.

That salvation is to be found in art that seeks. It is to be found in music like tonight’s, music of the purest expression.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Wild God and written by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, unless noted)

  1. Frogs
  2. Wild God
  3. Song of the Lake
  4. O Children (Cave) (from Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus)
  5. Jubilee Street (from Push the Sky Away)
  6. From Her to Eternity (Cave/Anita Lane/Blixa Bargeld/Hugo Race/Barry Adamson/Mick Harvey) (from From Her to Eternity)
  7. Long Dark Night
  8. Cinnamon Horses
  9. Tupelo (Cave/Adamson/Harvey) (from The Firstborn is Dead)
  10. Conversion
  11. Bright Horses (from Ghosteen)
  12. Joy
  13. I Need You (from Skeleton Tree)
  14. Carnage (from Carnage)
  15. Final Rescue Attempt
  16. Red Right Hand (Cave/Harvey/Thomas Wydler) (from Let Love In)
  17. The Mercy Seat (Cave/Harvey) (from Tender Prey)
  18. White Elephant (from Carnage)
  19. Encore: Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry (Cave) (from Henry’s Dream)
  20. Encore: The Weeping Song (Cave) (from The Good Son)
  21. Encore: Into My Arms (Cave) (from The Boatman’s Call)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My review of Faith, Hope and Carnage, cited in the review above, can be found here.

Impressions from Beneath the Lidded Eye: Bob Dylan Live in Liverpool

November 7, 2024 /

Sunday 3rd November 2024

M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool, England

To review a Bob Dylan concert is to risk playing a fool’s game. For decades, these events have been known to be strange beasts; musically opaque and lacking in showmanship, with radically altered song arrangements and raspy, often barely comprehensible vocals from a now 83-year-old Dylan who often stays hidden from view behind his piano. Criticise these well-documented flaws – or features – and you run the risk of being seen to “not get it”, or to be disrespecting an all-time legend who, as his Nobel Prize citation correctly judged, “created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. But to praise the events, or massage their jarring effect, often makes a reviewer comes across as esoteric or wilfully blind (or deaf), the review an embarrassed attempt to throw pants on a beloved but ageing emperor who is exposed naked on the stage.

For my part, I have little inclination to rehash the well-known pros and cons of a night of Bob Dylan live, suffice to say that they all crossed my mind on this night at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool. I can only offer my thoughts from having witnessed the live experience myself. These impressions are honestly given; the praise I give is not meant to be blind or effusive, and the criticism is not meant to be scornful or disparaging. I am a big Bob Dylan fan – I even liked Tarantula – but I don’t think he should be exempt from criticism, or nailed in place on a pedestal whenever he’s in danger of falling off. Although there is a cachet in having been to see the living legend in the flesh, I had no inclination to go to the zoo to gawp at a tired and ageing lion behind the bars, hammering out all the old hits. I made the hour-long drive to Liverpool filled with the same hope I attend all my gigs – to experience moments where I am turned, artistically and profoundly, by an artist who can see terrain that I cannot. And thankfully, for all the peculiarities of the Bob Dylan experience, that is what I received.

It is sight which is, quite literally, my first impression of the night. I arrive early at the cavernous arena and am well-settled in my seat by the time the lights go down and Dylan and his band come out on stage. (There is no opening act tonight.) The stage itself is dimly-lit, with only half-a-dozen warm yellow lights speaking meekly out into the crowd of thousands. Like everyone else, my eyes search for Dylan himself, but can see only a handful of indistinguishable silhouettes backlit by the small and insubstantial bulbs. By process of elimination, we can identify him as the outline of a profile hunched behind a piano on centre-stage, a microphone stand extending towards him. He will occasionally step out from behind the piano tonight, making him more identifiable, but he always shuffles back into the enveloping dark again.

It is a disappointment; the lighting an unnecessary contributor to audience dissatisfaction, particularly for those of us towards the rear of the vast venue. Throughout the night, I try to make a virtue of it, telling myself that it allows me to focus on the sounds, but such are the peculiar aural qualities of Dylan’s live music that I find myself sometimes struggling with that too. I also remind myself that this is the same sort of cope I had often identified in Dylan reviewers, my own throw of the dice in that fool’s game I warned myself of earlier. So too is the temptation to excuse this deliberately distant, low-lit figure as further evidence of Dylan’s inscrutability. But the honest truth is that, game as I am to take Dylan on his own terms, too often tonight I find my eyes and ears working overtime to filter out what is happening in front of me. My experience of the man and his music is at a significant remove.

As for the music itself, it is a mixed bag, though better than I had feared from Dylan’s live reputation. I realise that is not the most ringing endorsement one can give, but the long, ominous bluesy intro that announced the opening ‘All Along the Watchtower’ got my foot tapping and reassured me that, although the path may not always be smooth, there would indeed be a path. ‘Watchtower’ was otherwise unrecognisable as the song I knew both from John Wesley Harding and from Jimi Hendrix, while the radically changed arrangement and rasping vocals of the second song meant I only identified it as ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe’ towards its end.

The audience is on surer ground with the newer songs from the Rough and Rowdy Ways album, which are more recognisable in both their arrangements and their vocals – a fact which in itself supports the argument that Dylan’s peculiar approaches to other songs are a conscious choice (however inscrutable), rather than a collapse of skill or talent. ‘I Contain Multitudes’ is next up, followed by ‘False Prophet’, and illustrate the sound that Dylan and the band conjure tonight. Bluesy guitars are a persistent feature, as are chuntering rhythms underpinned by the drums of the legendary Jim Keltner, who colours the loose music tonight with tight, subtle drum fills. Dylan himself will bash away enthusiastically at the piano, sometimes out of sync with the rest of the band – an acquired taste (to say the least) that is not helped by the fact his piano comes through the amp much louder than any other instrument.

Nevertheless, Dylan’s rough and rowdy approach to the songs does sometimes pay dividends. A barely-identifiable ‘When I Paint My Masterpiece’ is nevertheless fascinating, as it opens with a Marc Ribot-style guitar line that reminds me of the Tom Waits song ‘Hoist That Rag’. ‘Black Rider’ starts slowly and its lyrics are delivered almost as spoken-word by Dylan.

I didn’t find much to remark upon in ‘My Own Version of You’, but ‘To Be Alone with You’ sees Dylan happily bashing away on the piano, and its up-tempo qualities are brought back down by the slow and bluesy ‘Crossing the Rubicon’. There is a sense of dissonance, of experimentation, of a looseness not so much akin to a jam session but more of an artist sifting through the raw material of a song. Dylan’s reverse-alchemy, unpacking a complete song back into its elements, can be jarring and sometimes unsuccessful, but it is interesting. At the risk of sounding like one of those coping mechanisms I accused other reviewers of using above, I peered at the hunched figure on the distant stage, a dark velvet curtain hanging low and lidded over the sparse lighting, and saw a restlessly bored genius, indifferent after sixty years of performing, who was looking to travel into those creative recesses where the music came from and offer us a glimpse, or at least a facsimile, of how it occurs.

Anyone who has tried creating art themselves in an honest way knows this creative place, its loneliness and its unpleasantness and how things seem to emerge out of nothing in that darkness where the muses dwell. Dylan has recreated this, and like a scientist seeking to hold a fundamental particle of creation for a fleeting moment of laboratory measurement, it is often a failure.

But when it is captured, as in the next song, it can be surprisingly exhilarating. ‘Desolation Row’ is one of Dylan’s most remarkable songs, and as Jim Keltner’s fast-paced drums begin to rumble, we in the audience can already recognise it as remarkable on the night. It feels better than it perhaps is, because the audience has had to work for it, but there is some fine harmonica from Dylan (bookended by some, well, enthusiastic piano-playing) and the song is well worth the ovation it receives at its end.

‘Key West (Philosopher Pirate)’, which follows, is interesting and lucid, but its sparse and slow arrangement leads to a bit of a lull. While movement has been happening in the crowd all night, the stream of people heading back and forth down the aisles becomes distracting. Like ants on a fallen Cornetto, they scuttle out through the lighted tunnels into the concourse, to buy beer and to piss and to buy beer in order to piss again. Dylan’s prohibition on mobile phones (we have had to lock them away in pouches provided by stewards at the entrances, so there are no photos or videos of tonight) seems to be a quixotic folly. The sort of people who consider it an outrage to be parted from their phones for two hours of live music will just find other ways of disrupting their fellow concert-goers.

Unfortunately, I’ve grown accustomed to poor concert etiquette, even as I still fail to understand why people would pay so much money for a show and then not pay any attention to it, but Dylan’s loose, disengaged approach does highlight the problems that can arise when the audience is not all-in. Perhaps that engagement is never possible given the oddities of a Bob Dylan live set, particularly in a large and impersonal arena, but I find I cannot entirely blame the waning interest of many in the crowd. While I remain engaged with the music, despite the distractions, it has required significant effort to do so in the low lighting and through oscillating arrangements and rasping vocals. Dylan live is a cerebral experience with fluctuating rewards.

It’s a shame that a lot of people seem to have decided the arena is merely an expensive and inconvenient boozer, because Dylan, who has been producing remarkable moments since the early 1960s, still has a few more moments of real worth to give us tonight. ‘Watching the River Flow’, which follows ‘Key West’ builds heavily with Dylan’s piano and also incorporates his evergreen harmonica sound. Bob’s cacophony works well for this song – or proves resilient to it, depending on your viewpoint – and it is a fine moment.

Its follow-up, ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’, is another radically different arrangement, a slow number with plaintive vocals that silences the crowd. The song from 1965, often interpreted as the newly-electric Dylan turning his back on his acoustic years, is a reminder that Bob’s determination to go his own way is no recent development. He follows it with the slow groove of ‘I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You’, a lull that continues when he steps out from behind his piano to sing ‘Mother of Muses’, microphone in hand.

Another new song follows, although ‘Goodbye Jimmy Reed’ sounds much different from the album version. Tonight it is a higher tempo song, almost like a boogie, with some good guitar from the band. The arrangement hides the lyrics, but the music blossoms.

A distinctive guitar riff opens ‘Every Grain of Sand’. The peculiar flow of the set and the lack of showmanship tonight has failed to communicate to me that this will be tonight’s final song, and it is only at its end, when the lights come up, that I realise it is. Nevertheless, I have drunk the moment in, not because it is the last song I have heard – and perhaps will ever hear – Dylan sing live, but because it is special in itself, another of those moments I mentioned where a singular artist has managed to turn me onto unseen terrain. ‘Every Grain of Sand’ is delivered elegantly – it is one of the few songs tonight that doesn’t seem to end with an emergency stop, with Dylan the instructor tapping on the dashboard – but most remarkable is the harmonica sound that Bob provides in the song. It is one of his finest and most enduring qualities; the sound he creates with the instrument now in this Liverpool arena in 2024 is as clear and distinctive as it was on the songs of the Freewheelin’ album in 1963.

The song ends, and the crowd applauds. For all Dylan’s oddities, the ovation is deserved, and he comes to stand out front and centre on the stage for the first time. Exposed under the lights, that carefully lidded eye lifted a little higher to see, and coming so soon after those distinguished harmonica notes, we are reminded how bright this star once shone, and how it will one day fade for good, never to be replaced. The night’s impurities – the ragged vocals, the over-balanced piano, the occasional bum note – fade into insignificance, leaving only the finest moments. The harmonica on that final ‘Every Grain of Sand’. ‘Desolation Row’. ‘Watching the River Flow’. Such things have been worth seeking, even if we do have to parse through every coarse grain of sand.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Rough and Rowdy Ways and written by Bob Dylan, unless noted)

  1. All Along the Watchtower (from John Wesley Harding)
  2. It Ain’t Me, Babe (from Another Side of Bob Dylan)
  3. I Contain Multitudes
  4. False Prophet
  5. When I Paint My Masterpiece (from Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II)
  6. Black Rider
  7. My Own Version of You
  8. To Be Alone with You (from Nashville Skyline)
  9. Crossing the Rubicon
  10. Desolation Row (from Highway 61 Revisited)
  11. Key West (Philosopher Pirate)
  12. Watching the River Flow (single)
  13. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (from Bringing it All Back Home)
  14. I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You
  15. Mother of Muses
  16. Goodbye Jimmy Reed
  17. Every Grain of Sand (from Shot of Love)

My reviews of Tarantula and Chronicles, Vol. 1 by Bob Dylan can be found here.

My other concert reviews can be found here.

For a Townes Song: Vincent Neil Emerson and Kassi Valazza Live in Manchester

September 3, 2024 /

Tuesday 27th August 2024

Gullivers, Manchester, England

I still recall the moment during the Covid pandemic when I first stumbled across the music that I label, with a very broad brush, an American ‘roots’ scene, though you could call it country, roots, alternative, indie or Americana. I had never in my life taken to the contemporary music that gets pushed, pre-packaged and auto-tuned, into our culture, always preferring what are called, with other unsatisfactory labels, ‘classic’ or ‘oldies’. And with the death of Tom Petty a couple of years earlier, I had firmly believed that I would never be able to come across new music I loved again.

But during the lockdown, I discovered the music of a young Canadian country singer called Colter Wall, a friend and sometime-tourmate of tonight’s headliner Vincent Neil Emerson. I’ve not yet had the opportunity to hear him live, but the quality of the music was a revelation, and stirred me to explore what proved to be a whole new world of incredible art; first Tyler Childers, with whom Colter duetted on ‘Fraulein’, then Vincent Neil Emerson and Charley Crockett and Sierra Ferrell, and then Billy Strings and Nick Shoulders and Luke Bell and Kassi Valazza. The list continues to grow and grow.

The point I am trying to make, in this indulgent and no-doubt-uninteresting opening spiel, is that just a few years ago it would have been inconceivable that I even attend gigs at all, instead staying within my homebody orbit of Beatles and Petty and Dylan and Cash music, let alone find myself in the position I am tonight, in a darkly-lit room above Gullivers pub in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. Because tonight I’m not just excited about one new artist and the great music they have created, but two. In the months since this gig was announced, I’ve marvelled at how lucky I am to hear, on the same bill, in a small, intimate venue, for just twenty of our English pounds, both Kassi Valazza and Vincent Neil Emerson. In a week when the Oasis reunion has just been announced and tickets to that circus will no doubt resell for thousands of pounds, I can’t help but smile at how I find myself where the truly valuable music is.

‘Jessica’ plays over the soundsystem as I wait for such a fortuitous night to unfold; I recognise it not only as the Top Gear theme song but because the Allman Brothers Band were one of those ‘oldies’ I once used to fill the hole where new, vibrant contemporary music should have been. It’s for the same reason that I recognise Levon Helm of The Band singing ‘Ophelia’ as Kassi Valazza moves her way through the crowd of perhaps one hundred people and takes the stage, alongside her bandmates Lewi Longmire and Tobias Berblinger. Kassi recognises the song too, and as she takes a seat before her microphone she makes a play of singing along with ‘Ophelia’, smiling to Tobias behind his keyboard.

The trio now set up, the night of wealth can begin. As Tobias begins to construct the first of his swirling cosmic soundscapes, Lewi makes delicate chirruping noises on his slide guitar and Kassi, on her acoustic guitar, plucks out the mantra-like melody of ‘Birds Fly High’. It’s the perfect introductory song for Kassi – she’s opened with it on all three times I’ve seen her live – as it grabs the attention of the crowd, but not with a gimmick; instead, it overwhelms with a paradoxically intense restfulness. The expansive, almost psychedelic folk-rock sound Kassi generates eschews the drug references of some of her Sixties influences in favour of an ageless, lyrical poetry. Her music and her delicate, pure voice fix the listener in place while allowing their mind to roam. This is music you can float unburdened in.

It is because of this effect that Kassi’s setlist tonight still feels fresh to me, even though I heard her play in the city of York just a couple of nights earlier. The setlist and the sequence is much the same (sans ‘Early Morning Rising’ and her profound cover of the Neil Young song ‘One of These Days’), but there’s a craft and resonance to her music that ensures it never wanes. If Kassi were here again tomorrow night, I would be too.

One benefit of attending tonight is that I have, unlike my two previous Kassi gigs, a clear view of Lewi Longmire. I’ve been able to hear him, of course, but tonight I’m able to see the delicate touches he puts together on his electric guitar to punctuate certain moments tonight, all judged expertly. I’m able to appreciate more the harmonies he provides on ‘Room in the City’ and the classic, lonesome harmonica sound on the same. I’m able to see him use a pedal to bend his notes in ‘Rapture’, the third song tonight, adding tasteful touches to an acoustic song that could have easily been broken by them, had they been misjudged. They’re not, and ‘Rapture’ is as good as I’ve ever heard it.

Amusingly, another feature of a Kassi Valazza gig I’ve noticed is that, committed to her sound, she will inevitably ask the sound booth to make an adjustment, directing technical requests from the microphone. Tonight is no exception. “Could I get less reverb on my voice?” she asks after ‘Room in the City’, almost shyly. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been asking that,” she says to the audience. I can attest: in York two days before, she had asked for more reverb.

While the adjustment is made, Kassi talks to the crowd about the elephant in the room, or rather in the city of Manchester. She doesn’t know which Gallagher brother is which, but “Oasis are getting back together. You guys are really excited about that,” she teases. “Earlier today, I heard two strangers just start talking about it.” Kassi’s not known for being a talker on stage, and as the opening act tonight she doesn’t have much time to introduce each song, but she’s a relaxed presence. It’s a theme of the night; Vincent Neil Emerson will later prove to have the audience in the palm of his hand, and even now Lewi Longmire is languid alongside Kassi as he plays his guitar. It’s a night of easy goodwill.

Except, perhaps, for the poor sound engineer. “I’m gonna be extra difficult now,” Kassi laughs after ‘Rapture’. “Could I get a bit more reverb?” The cosmic circle spins. She’ll build you up, she’ll build you down.

Next up is ‘Johnny Dear’, one of her signature songs “written for my grandmother”, followed by ‘Watching Planes Go By’, one of my favourites. Every time I hear this song, whether live or on record, I’m always struck by how it sounds like a lost classic, particularly that exhilarating moment as she sings “in the gentle morning”.  But it’s a Kassi original – the opening folk-rock ambience, that stirring moment as we “watch the sky break open, see her run”, the roaming of Lewi’s guitar.

Such compositions were taken for granted once, a few generations ago, and perhaps they will be again. They certainly can be as far as Kassi’s own songbook is concerned, which is full of such astonishing moments. She proves it now, with the cosmically mellow ‘Canyon Lines’ and ‘Song for a Season’, followed by the unreleased ‘Roll On’. Each finds Kassi’s expansive music hollowing out a great space in your mind. The ‘Welcome Song’ which follows is surely seven songs too late to welcome any listeners as die-hard converts to her sound.

The next one is a “new song,” Kassi says, “on an album that’s still being mixed”. ‘Weight of the Wheel’, as with the unreleased ‘Birds Fly High’ and ‘Roll On’ before it, fits seamlessly into Kassi’s sound, with that uncanny ability she has of making you feel, in the best possible way, like you’ve heard them before. Perhaps those hooks moved past us all in that cosmic stream but only Kassi had the eye to see them and reach out to claim them, and now as she returns them to us we recall them as they passed us by.

The new song is followed by an old one, a cover of Michael Hurley’s ‘Wildageeses’ which featured on her last album. One of Kassi Valazza’s finest traits is carrying the flame of this no-longer-unsung musician and I’m sure I’m not the only person tonight who has been turned on to his music by her heartfelt advocacy. Harmonising with Lewi Longmire, another of Hurley’s friends, her version of ‘Wildageeses’ tonight is as gentle as I’ve ever heard it.

Kassi ends her set with ‘Chino’, another of those songs that sounds astonishingly clear in your mind as you hear it. It allows all three musicians to shine, from Kassi’s crystal voice, pure and free of any affectation, to the harnessed cosmic freakout Lewi and Tobias bring towards its end, like a Pandora’s box opened just a fraction at the corner of the lid to allow some chaos out.

The trio have allowed our minds to roam one final time and at its end, Kassi unfixes us from her Siren song and people begin to roam physically about the room. We’ve already been provided with enough quality music to make the night a success but, remarkably, we’re only halfway through. As Kassi makes her way back through the milling crowd, we await Vincent Neil Emerson to take the stage.

I do admit that I had some misgivings about the gig tonight. Unlike with Kassi, I had not seen Vincent live before and I wondered how it would all pan out. I knew he would be performing solo with an acoustic guitar. I knew his work and I knew (from bitter experience) that lyrical, thoughtful songs strummed on an acoustic guitar don’t always retain the attention of a large crowd. Would hard-hitting songs like ‘Little Wolf’s Invincible Yellow Medicine Paint’ still work without an amplified band? I also found it unusual that the solo acoustic act would follow the electric, amplified one that Kassi and her companions had just done so well to provide.

All of which would prove completely unfounded. “Alright, cut the house music,” Vincent Neil Emerson says as he takes the stage and places himself behind his acoustic guitar. He’s a large man, dressed all in denim and with a bold-white ten-gallon cowboy hat and long hair. From first moment to last, Vincent will be a powerful presence on stage tonight; confident, at ease, a storyteller and a comedian. A genial man and a no-nonsense one; a personality and, goddammit, a musician. He’ll have the audience in the palm of his hand, myself included.

What’s more, he’s going to do things his own way. “I’m gonna start with a Rolling Stones song,” he says, “but I know it better from Townes Van Zandt.” And with that, he punches out a fine version of the country staple ‘Dead Flowers’. Vincent’s setlist tonight will be testament to his boldness, and not just because he opens with a cover song. Of the 17 songs he plays, only five will be from any of his albums, and four of those are front-loaded to follow straight after the opening Stones song. There’s a long sequence where, knitted together by his stories, Vincent sings only unreleased material – a mix of covers and originals. There’ll be none of the fan-favourites from his first album, Fried Chicken and Evil Women – a shouted request for ‘Letters on the Marquee’ much later on tonight has Vincent respond that he “can’t play it in this tuning, but we’ll see what we can do later”. It sounds as non-committal as when a parent tells their child “we’ll see” when they ask for candy.

‘Marquee’, of course, remains unplayed. The crowd-pleasing ‘Little Wolf’ song as the second-to-last song is the only fillip to live setlist orthodoxy. It might sound arrogant to some, but it feels anything but on the night. Vincent exudes a confidence that the crowd will be there for whatever he chooses to play. And, because he proves to be so good at it, we will.

“This is my first time playing in England,” he says, though he looks right at home, as though he were singing songs to friends around a campfire. He talks about how he became friends with Charley Crockett. “He covered one of my songs, ‘7 Come 11’, and it meant a lot to me.” Vincent says he got a chance to repay him on his latest record. ‘Time of the Cottonwood Trees’, the Crockett song he covers both on the album and now tonight, is enhanced by Vincent’s fingerpicking guitar style.

“The next song is based on a murder ballad,” Vincent says, before singing the first lines of the traditional folk song ‘Tom Dooley’. Vincent is open about how he “took that melody and made it into a love song”. He’s certainly not the first artist to take an old arrangement and make it his own, and you can’t argue with the results: ‘Clover on the Hillside’ is a beautiful song and one that’s very much his.

“It’s strange walking around with a cowboy hat in England,” he grins. Certainly, he had turned heads when he walked into the pub downstairs before the show, big and broad in that white ten-gallon hat. But then again, he and Lewi Longmire had also been bearing pizzas. “Someone yelled ‘Cotton-Eye Joe,” he chuckles. “I don’t know if Cotton-Eye Joe even wore a cowboy hat,” he admits, his knowledge of hallowed folk traditions failing him for once.

Next up is a song by Buffy Sainte-Marie. Vincent’s cover of ‘Co’dine’ is dark and bluesy, a powerful delivery. It does, however, require him to retune his guitar on stage.

“I learned this from Neil Young,” he says while tuning. He turns guitar teacher. “You hold this chord like this and this one like this and then… you have to tune your guitar again on stage.” The crowd laughs and claps at his mock-disdain.

“I don’t know what’s up with this guitar,” he says, still tuning. “Maybe it thinks it’s still a tree.”

Finally, he gets it right. “That was good,” he says, putting together a melody as the crowd laughs again. “Because I’m just about out of jokes.”

“This next song’s from an album I named after, well, myself,” he says, before spinning a story of how he got a chance to do the song with Rodney Crowell during Covid times. As Vincent tells it, they were at Rodney’s house with their masks on, and as the wine came out the masks came off. Tonight’s performance of ‘High on Gettin’ By’ justifies the tuning it has taken to get there, as well as any potential Covid breaches it may have occasioned.

“Whew, it’s hot in here,” Vincent says, taking his hat off briefly. I guess these lightweight Texans can’t handle the heat of northern England. He jokes about maybe getting the lights turned off and running around in the dark, before introducing the next song as “a love song about hating flying”, written about a month ago. Marked on the setlist as ‘Jet Plane’, it’s a tender song which uses the iconography of air travel to bring home lines about returning to the one you love. “Blinded by the sunlight on the wings,” Vincent sings, “it’s a reminder that you shine on everything.”

“Are there any Texans in the crowd?” Vincent says, surely a shot in the dark in a room of a hundred people in the North of England. Surprisingly, the shot hits home. A lady who’s made her way to the front hollers; she’s from Fort Worth. A man further back shouts that he’s Texan too. “Too late, man,” Vincent says. “Your Texas privileges have been revoked.”

Vincent’s easy, confident stage presence tonight has been a surprise tonight, but a welcome one. Knowing him only from his recorded material, I had expected a more pensive, insular, perhaps even depressive, musician. But he’s worked the crowd well, joking and speaking and making the moments between songs as natural as the songs themselves. On stage he proves a great storyteller.

The next song, he says, was written by a woman named Elizabeth Cotten. He tells the story of how in the Fifties she was working as a nanny for the folk singer Pete Seeger, and the family came back home early one time to find her singing a song she’d written years before. Cotton got a record deal when she was in her sixties as a result of this, and Vincent plays a rolling version of ‘Freight Train’. Knowing its origin makes the song even more resonant, and shows that Vincent’s folksy storytelling stage is more than just a means to move things along.

“I quit drinkin’ about six months ago,” Vincent says.

Silence.

“Yeah,” he says with a grin. “I knew no one would clap for that here.”

After the audience stops laughing, he treats us to a song he wrote that remains unreleased. ‘Chippin’ at the Stone’ is a sad, confessional song that fits more into the preconceptions of the artist that I had before the night, and it fits him like a glove. It’s interesting to see him switch gears seamlessly; a solo acoustic set doesn’t allow for much variation, at least not to an unsophisticated ear like mine, but Vincent has a knack of finding the right tone for each song and moving deftly from one to the next.

“It means a lot to play for you guys,” he says, to applause from the crowd, telling us how his two previous tours to Europe had been cancelled. “One of the things I can do is bring back some of those folk songs that left on the boat!” He begins to strum. “I thought this one was an English folk song,” he says. “Turns out it’s a Scottish one.” A man roars in the audience – presumably a Scotsman, or a really self-loathing Englishman, or a man who’s stubbed his toe. Vincent’s version of the classic ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ – “All around the purple heather / Will you go? Lassie, go?” – manages to convey its timelessness. Whether they’re from Scotland, England or Fort Worth, Texas, everyone in the audience feels its peace.

Next up is another unreleased song penned by Vincent, ‘Rodeo Clown’, before he’s back in storytelling mode. “I had a full English breakfast this morning. Actually, let me ask you guys: what’s the difference – sorry, it sounds like I’m setting up a joke here – what’s the difference between a ‘full English breakfast’ and a ‘full Irish breakfast’?”

Someone immediately shouts out the answer; it’s white and black pudding. “Ah, ok,” Vincent responds, idly strumming his guitar. “We don’t see colour over in America,” he quips, to knowing laughter from the crowd. “Actually,” he says after a pause, “we’re probably racist as shit.” He tells the crowd about his Native American heritage and the story of one of his family members being invited to a KKK meeting by a schoolfriend who didn’t realise she wasn’t white.

“Anyway, on a less heavier note,” – though I can’t say whether he’s referring to the KKK or to the full English breakfast – Vincent moves into ‘Louisiana Wind’ and ‘Angeline’. Both are unreleased songs he’s written and, as with ‘Rodeo Clown’ before them, their bones are strong and I find myself interested to see what their final form will be in the studio. ‘Angeline’ in particular sounds like it could be a future country classic, and as it’s a new song – “you’re probably the first to hear it,” Vincent says – I feel particularly privileged to be here tonight.

Speaking of classic country songs, Vincent invites Kassi Valazza back up on stage “for a Townes song”. Kassi moves through the crowd, no longer wearing the brown leather jacket she wore for her own set. As Vincent strums his guitar, the two harmonise on the Townes Van Zandt song ‘Loretta’. As well as her own powerful studio work, Kassi has a gift for lending her voice to others’ songs (‘I Stole the Right to Live’ with Taylor Kingman and ‘A Strange Goodbye’ with Jesper Lindell both come to mind). There’s probably no voice I enjoy hearing more at the moment than Kassi’s, and tonight she helps provide another special moment. She leaves the stage to more deserved applause, and I hope it’s not too long before I see her grace one again.

“I used to drink a lot on stage,” Vincent says, and an eagle-eyed observer might note the can of Heineken beside his stool, as conspicuous as a coffee cup in Winterfell. It gives the lie to his earlier story about quitting drinking, unless of course it’s 0.0. And if it’s not, well, a tall tale or two is fine also – for a folk singer.

“Those couple of inches matter,” he says. “It’s the difference between sounding like this,” – he begins strumming his guitar, his left hand high on the neck – “and sounding like this,” – he imitates playing the guitar drunk, his left hand low and sloppy. As the crowd laughs, he says “there’s a lot of open mic nights like that in Texas.” Proving he’s as sober as a judge, he launches into a quietly fiery song called ‘Rich Man’ – something he wrote about “how the rich kids were the ones who bullied people at school, and how as I got older it seems like it’s the same thing happening.”

“There’s a bar in Texas,” he says, introducing the next song. He nods to the lady from Fort Worth. “Maybe you know it – it’s called the Red Goose. Anyway, I went there with Colter Wall while we were on tour together, and we were surprised we got to hear Ramblin’ Jack Elliott play.” After a bit of folk history on Ramblin’ Jack, Vincent sings a strong and wistful version of ‘If I Were a Carpenter’, a song Jack helped popularise.

We’re into the home stretch, and while no one’s gonna tell Vincent Neil Emerson what to put on a setlist (aside from the fan who, after the next song, will yell futilely for ‘Letters on the Marquee’), there’s one song that the night wouldn’t feel complete without. ‘Little Wolf’s Invincible Yellow Medicine Paint’ is not just a great title but has, since its release on his latest album, quickly become a fan favourite. It’s a powerful crowd-pleaser, as well as being a lyrical testament to Vincent’s love for his Choctaw-Apache tribe.

I had wondered how this would come across in an acoustic set – the album version has power chords and a fine electric guitar solo – but the song is strong enough on its own. Even though Vincent has to pause halfway through to tune his guitar – “it wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t such a sad song,” he quips – there’s big medicine in it that can’t be denied.

It’s time for the final song, and Vincent leads into it with a playful commentary on whether the phrase “catfish fishing” is grammatically correct. It’s certainly an unwieldy phrase, but the same can’t be said of his song ‘Fishing Hole’. Punctuated by a few stomps from Vincent’s boots, it’s a fun and down-key end to the night. “Yip yip,” Vincent says as he strums the final chords, the words breaking the spell that had been woven by tonight’s four musicians from Kassi Valazza’s very first note.

As ever, my own notes, provided here days later, are but a poor facsimile of the music that we have heard on the night, failing completely to capture its magic, its resonance and the joy one feels at the opportunity to hear it. To be here tonight is to listen, in a small crowd, to music that should be heard by millions, if only our culture had the health and strength and integrity to champion it. To be privileged to hear this music so intimately is akin to that feeling of being up before dawn and watching the sun rise, or to see the ocean swell before it forms a wave. It is to be ahead of things, and to feel alive.

Fortunately, there’s so much of it, so many opportunities to hear great artists within this country and folk and roots music scene, even here in England far removed from the sands of Texas and Arizona. Indeed, an Englishman can become so gluttonous as to enjoy both Kassi Valazza and Vincent Neil Emerson on the same bill, in a crowd of scarcely a hundred. To find this music and to realise there is so much of it, from so many great artists, where you had expected to find so little, is like discovering El Dorado where you expected only dirt.

And just as the stories say the natives of El Dorado did not understand the awe with which the conquistadors beheld their plentiful yellow rocks, many people pass this music by, and leave the wealth for the fortunate one hundred who stepped into the close heat of Gullivers in Manchester, and who now, at the end of the show, filter back out into the normal world. I too step out into the ordinary night, where the streets are paved with macadam, not gold.

Setlist #1 (Kassi Valazza):

(all songs from the album Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing and written by Kassi Valazza, unless noted)

  1. Birds Fly High (unreleased)
  2. Room in the City
  3. Rapture
  4. Johnny Dear (from Dear Dead Days)
  5. Watching Planes Go By
  6. Canyon Lines
  7. Song for a Season
  8. Roll On (unreleased)
  9. Welcome Song
  10. Weight of the Wheel (unreleased)
  11. Wildageeses (Michael Hurley)
  12. Chino (from Dear Dead Days)

Setlist #2 (Vincent Neil Emerson):

(all songs written by Vincent Neil Emerson, unless noted)

  1. Dead Flowers (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards) (unreleased)
  2. Time of the Cottonwood Trees (Charley Crockett) (from The Golden Crystal Kingdom)
  3. Clover on the Hillside (from The Golden Crystal Kingdom)
  4. Co’dine (Buffy Sainte-Marie) (from The Golden Crystal Kingdom)
  5. High on Gettin’ By (from Vincent Neil Emerson)
  6. Jet Plane (unreleased)
  7. Freight Train (Elizabeth Cotten) (unreleased)
  8. Chippin’ at the Stone (unreleased)
  9. Wild Mountain Thyme (Traditional) (unreleased)
  10. Rodeo Clown (unreleased)
  11. Louisiana Wind (unreleased)
  12. Angeline (unreleased)
  13. Loretta (with Kassi Valazza) (Townes Van Zandt) (unreleased)
  14. Rich Man (unreleased)
  15. If I Were a Carpenter (Tim Hardin) (unreleased)
  16. Little Wolf’s Invincible Yellow Medicine Paint (from The Golden Crystal Kingdom)
  17. Fishin’ Hole (unreleased)

Author’s Note: If Vincent Neil Emerson would convince Colter Wall to tour the UK, I’d be much obliged.

One of These Days: Kassi Valazza Live in York

August 29, 2024 /

Sunday 25th August 2024

Bluebird Bakery, York, England

If I could sit down and write a long review it would have everything in it. The Bluebird, a working bakery converted into a music venue at night, with black sheets covering the windows to keep out the plainness of the road outside; a sign saying closed tonight except for ticket holders; the low, warm light from the candles which are lit in glass jars on the tables; the beautiful, dark-haired woman at the door. It would have the cool breeze that comes in when the door is opened to admit latecomers and it would have the bottles of wine and beer on the tables and the applause between songs and the guitars waiting patiently in their stands on the stage before the music begins.

It would have, if it were possible to write about music without killing what is good in it, the sound of Kassi Valazza as she sings of a “castle of stone” in ‘Roll On’, a mile from the ancient walls of York. It would have her crystal-clear voice as it sings of canyon lines and spinning circles and the small town of Chino, Arizona, and it would be able to describe the way she blends the lyrics with the melody so each song sounds purer than the silence it replaces. It would have Lewi Longmire’s slide guitar making ethereal chirruping noises as the song ‘Birds Fly High’ builds to open the night and it would have Tobias Berblinger silent behind his keyboards as he closes his eyes and constructs the soundscapes that allow Kassi and Lewi to roam. It would have Kassi switching between her two acoustic guitars and plucking a deep, mantra-like rhythm on the willing strings, and it would have her tapping out the rhythm in her thick-heeled leather shoes. It would have Lewi’s harmonica strung around his neck as it blows out a yearning, lonesome note on ‘Room in the City’ and it would have the classic Californian folk-rock sound coming from his electric guitar; a gorgeous vibe that no one seems to want to make anymore and which in every resounding note makes you wonder why.

It should make clear the chord changes and the fragile texture and composure of the songs and the way they fit into the gentle ambience of the night; and it would also show how they don’t simply belong to that ambience but also move it and shape it, as Kassi, ten years removed from her job in a bakery in Portland, finds herself in another bakery taking the material she has and kneading it with her fingers and making it rise. And alongside the music as it swells the review would also have the small and banal things; the white t-shirt Kassi wears bearing the face of her friend Chris Acker, the black t-shirt Tobias wears bearing the name of their tourmate Vincent Neil Emerson. It would find a way to mention in passing that I plan to see Kassi again a couple of days later alongside Emerson in Manchester, where I live, and that I drove over the hills of the old enemy to York only to hear her music at every possible opportunity, just as I travelled down to the Biddulph valley to hear it last year in a church in Staffordshire.

But above all, if it were good writing it would be able to describe the final song of the night when Kassi Valazza takes the stage for an encore and, singing alone, provides the purest moment. As her two travelling friends sit and look on in admiration from off-stage, Kassi strums her guitar and, closing her eyes, sings ‘One of These Days’ by Neil Young. One of these days, she sings, she’s gonna sit down and write a long letter, to all the good friends she’s known. And she’s gonna try and thank them for all the good times together, though so apart they’ve grown.

And the review would be able to explain only at great length what the singing of that song is able to communicate intuitively in a single moment. It would explain the hushed silence in the room from the audience; silence in the room, for the sound of Kassi and her guitar comes from another place. The writing would be able to press into the mind of the reader the thought that comes to the writer of the review with vivid clarity in the moment he hears the song, pressed as gently as Kassi presses it; the feeling of gratitude from the artist at the troubadour life they’ve chosen to lead, and a weariness tempered by sweetness, and a feeling of gratitude from the listener also as you experience the special moment that draws you to these artists in the first place, where they provide you with something you always wanted and perhaps needed but did not even know existed until they shone their light on it.

The writing would be able to evoke all the various memories which flood effortlessly through the mind as this song, lasting a few minutes, spreads itself out over an eternal time. The various memories made possible only because of the sacrifices these artists make, most of whom play small venues to a few dozen people and earn little to no money for the effort, and still decide to leave home for weeks and months and travel across an ocean to play and sing for people simply because people wish to hear them play and sing. And it would mention all those memories made in choosing to follow these artists to York and London and Staffordshire, and to hear them play at home in Manchester, and it would not just be memories such as Kassi playing in St. Lawrence’s Church in the darkness under pools of light, her song ‘Rapture’ soaring high into the eaves, but memories made possible by the decision to go at all, such as cresting the Biddulph valley in my car in the dark of the autumn night and seeing the town lit up in lights below; and finding my way to the church and walking up its path into the welcoming porchlight; or through the window of the train back from London the day after hearing Tyler Childers when I saw a red horse turn in a field and begin galloping, that I intended to put in a story somewhere; or spending the day today in York, walking its close, cobbled streets up to the skyscraping stone marvel of York Minster. And if it were good writing it would not invent anything but would mention how by the time I arrive in the late of the afternoon the cathedral would be closed to visitors, but that I would hear through the open doors the Minster’s choir sounding like angels beckoning to a better place, and yet I would know it would not be the sweetest music I would hear before the day was finished. And it would mention how I could not see the choir, only the darkness of the door and the candlelight within, and it would be able to show how truly this was enough.

If the writing were able to hold it all, it would recall in that moment Sierra Ferrell in Birkenhead with flowers in her hair, looking like she had stepped out of an Alphonse Mucha painting, and it would have Nick Shoulders with a head cold playing in a pub a few days after Hallowe’en, laughing at the toy spider decoration still spinning on a ceiling fan. It would have Charley Crockett leading his band into a blistering version of ‘Trinity River’, and it would have Billy Strings finding his way through ‘Hide and Seek’ as the song builds and builds and then breaks, the crowd thrashing like sharks around blood. And it would have space for the opening acts who are sacrificing more, perhaps, because their day is yet to come; for Tommy Prine singing a song about Gandalf all in white that I’ve not been able to hear again; for James Shakeshaft opening for Kassi tonight with a polished croon in his voice and a setlist of mostly unreleased songs which suggest his own best is still ahead of him; for Josh Beddis who opened for Sierra and for Mike West who at first I thought was a roadie gone rogue when he opened for Nick Shoulders in that pub in Bolton but who surprised me with his songwriting. It would have Mike and the Moonpies, who call themselves Silverada now; the metal shutter on the bar of the cellar where they play coming up like an ambush; the bassist Omar Oyoque leading the claps in ‘Beaches of Biloxi’; the two young bartenders dancing together during ‘Dance with Barbara’. It would have the crowd spontaneously singing the entirety of ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ to a bashful Oliver Anthony the moment he steps on stage at Manchester’s Albert Hall; the London crowd singing along to ‘Shake the Frost’ with Tyler Childers; Tyler swearing as he calls out a fight developing during ‘Country Squire’. It should have him refusing as he is heckled yet again for ‘Whitehouse Road’, and it should have the look on the hecklers’ faces if they could have known, then, that he would play the song in Manchester the following year. And though I would wish it didn’t, it should have those who drowned out Tyler’s songs with their chatter in Manchester, and it should have John R. Miller if those same ignorant people that night had allowed me to actually hear him. It would have 49 Winchester and the Red Clay Strays showing that rock music was not dead but was instead being sheltered by country; it would have Isaac Gibson singing ‘Russell County Line’ and Brandon Coleman leading the audience in ‘Hey Jude’ simply because the Beatles once played there.

And what else should it contain about the music you have heard and which you love? It should have Charley Crockett’s amp blowing on stage and it should have the paper planes Oliver Anthony sent flying into the crowd. It should have John Hall of the Red Clay Strays getting a piggyback off the stage and Sierra Ferrell throwing flower petals as she steps onto it. It should have Billy Strings flubbing his lines on ‘Heartbeat of America’ and somehow making it work. It should have all those other people who went to hear the music with me, the forty or so tonight for Kassi and the thousands of others, who roared and clapped and sat quietly, and who all took away different memories from those nights and found a chord struck with a different song. It would have Billy Strings speaking to my friend after his show as she tells him what his song ‘Secrets’ means to her and it would have Kassi speaking to me after hers. It would have Billy and Kassi and Mike West reaching out later to thank me for what I wrote about them, though they had made the writing of it easy by doing it so well, and it would have the promoter Nick Barber referred to as a staff member because I didn’t know any better and I would correct it later. It would have Mike West carting his gear down a quiet road after opening for the Moonpies and the close heat of the Charley Crockett gig during a heatwave, so warm you forgot it was warm and just accepted it, and it would have the coolness of the evening at night’s end when a car turned out of a sidestreet in the Northern Quarter and a man played a trumpet through its open window. It would have the many drives home afterwards when the music I play through the car stereo cannot replace it and when I hear the songs afterwards they are always enhanced by the memories of hearing them live. And it will have these moments because it will never be the same again, even if the song or the setlist you hear the next time remains the same.

But above all if the writing were good it would have Kassi Valazza singing it won’t be long, it won’t be long, it won’t be long, because that moment contains in it all the other moments, and if the writing had that then you wouldn’t need to write it at all. The music would be it already. You would let the music play and you would listen to it and hear it and write about it if you had to, but the music would survive even if you didn’t write it and the moments would continue to be made by the musicians who travel the world for their daily bread. And because of that, you will feel it deeply as Kassi ends with that Neil Young song, even if you cannot describe it, and having felt it all you will always look to go and hear it again. While the writing cannot say all that as simply as the song plays it in that one pure moment, you can still sit down and write a long letter and then you can be sure it has been said.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing and written by Kassi Valazza, unless noted)

  1. Birds Fly High (unreleased)
  2. Room in the City
  3. Rapture
  4. Johnny Dear (from Dear Dead Days)
  5. Watching Planes Go By
  6. Canyon Lines
  7. Song for a Season
  8. Roll On (unreleased)
  9. Welcome Song
  10. Early Morning Rising (single)
  11. Weight of the Wheel (unreleased)
  12. Wildageeses (Michael Hurley)
  13. Chino (from Dear Dead Days)
  14. Encore: One of These Days (Neil Young) (unreleased)

My concert reviews, including all of the gigs mentioned above, can be found here.

Happy Birthday, John Hall: The Red Clay Strays Live in Manchester

August 24, 2024 /

Wednesday 21st August 2024

O2 Ritz, Manchester, England

The first singalong of the night belongs not to the Red Clay Strays, nor even to Nolan Taylor, who opens for them tonight, but to the Gallagher brothers. By the time ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis plays over the sound system, the dance floor of the Manchester Ritz has filled. The choicest spots have already been taken along the wooden rails of the upper-level balconies that ring the venue, so I find a place by the metal rail at the front of the floor, just to the left of the stage. The bustling crowd, which had overlooked earlier gems like Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’ and ‘Are You Sure Hank Done it This Way?’ by Waylon Jennings, combines to sing along to the nasal strains of Liam Gallagher, the song perhaps the only thing more Mancunian than the rain that has begun to fall outside.

It’s followed by the instantly-recognisable earworm ‘Spirit in the Sky’, and the Red Clay Strays choose this as their entrance music. As the song continues to play, the band take the stage. The Strays are an interesting picture, a mix of styles. Lead singer Brandon Coleman, seemingly a foot taller than anyone else and instantly recognisable with his slicked-back Elvis-style hair, is reliably dapper in a grey suit jacket and formal shoes. He looks like he’s stepped out of the Sun Records office in 1955 and sings like he’s stepped into Muscle Shoals.

Drummer John Hall and guitarist Zach Rishel are more contemporary. Hall, his energy barely contained behind his Ludwig drum set, is casual in a white t-shirt and reversed baseball cap, while Zach, in cap and jeans and carrying a sky-blue Fender guitar, will find time tonight between songs to hit a vape. Bassist Andrew Bishop and guitarist Drew Nix, meanwhile, embrace Americana with Western shirts and belts – Drew goes all-in by adding a big brown cowboy hat, worn as easily as if he’d been born in it. Meanwhile, the bearded, long-haired Sevans Henderson, the most recent addition to the band, looks like he’s been poached from the tour bus of a Seventies band to play keys for the Strays.

But regardless of the eclectic look of its members, when the music starts, these Strays come together into a pack. They tear straight into the frantic rock energy of ‘Ramblin”, moving the needle to 11 the moment they’ve switched on. The song, a studio jam from their recent breakout album Made By These Moments, is followed by the groovy bass notes that announce ‘Stone’s Throw’, from their previous album Moment of Truth. Both albums will find equal representation in the setlist tonight.

It’s a busy stage tonight, and from my position at the front rail I can see that it’s very much a family affair. Brandon Coleman’s wife Macie is among those recording the event, and she seems as big a fan of the Red Clay Strays as anyone. Glamorous in a long, fur-lined leather coat, she is later obliged to remove it due to the heat of the venue, and continues to seek ideal vantage points from which to film.

Also filming is Brandon’s brother Matthew, wielding a professional camera and moving around, often in between the six members of the band on stage during the songs. If this were anyone else it might feel intrusive, but Matthew is a key part of the band and its success – as much a Seventh Stray as there was a Fifth Beatle. Later tonight, Brandon will stand before the mic and attribute much of the band’s viral popularity to his brother’s efforts.

Matthew is also an artist in his own right, writing a number of the band’s finest songs. That’s proven now on stage, as the band follow ‘Stone’s Throw’ with two songs penned by Matthew, the vulnerable, confessional ‘Forgive’ and the tough, strutting ‘Disaster’. “If you’re looking for a prophet, I tell you I ain’t,” Brandon sings in the latter, “but I know when it’s gonna rain.” That might be no great prophecy in the northern city of Manchester, where it rains even on this August summer evening, but it sounds great. ‘Disaster’, telling obliquely the story of biblical kings, is tonight’s first marker for one of the Alabaman band’s most remarkable features: their bold fealty to a Christian mythos and spirituality that never feels preachy or uncool.

This fealty is so measured and relaxed that, for an embarrassing minute, I don’t even register that Brandon is singing “good God Almighty” in the next song, a lusty ‘Good Godly Woman’. My brain registers it as “good dynamite”, although, as the Strays’ songwriting may suggest, it’s not clear which of the two can be the more potent explosive.

For the next song, Brandon invites Nolan Taylor back to the stage. The bearded singer-songwriter from Ohio had opened the night with a fine ten-song acoustic set, delivered in a penetratingly clear voice. Highlights included the lyrical ‘Wicked Ways’, ‘500’ and ‘Driving You Home’ – the latter his contribution to the recent Twisters film soundtrack. (The Red Clay Strays decide not to include their own contribution, the country-rocker ‘Caddo County’, in their setlist tonight.) However, the self-proclaimed hillbilly’s finest song had been ‘Darkness’, written when he was suicidal and “not feeling happy or sad about it”. Its plaintive emotional honesty, punctuated by a haunting whistle, is in keeping with the Strays’ own ethos.

Now his finest moment comes as, following Brandon’s lead, Nolan takes the second verse of ‘Moment of Truth’. Backed by the amplified sound of the Strays, Nolan’s voice soars even further than during his own set, and when he leaves the stage at the song’s end it’s to deserved cheers from the crowd.

As the Strays prepares for their next song, Brandon shakes his shoulders and looks up to the ceiling. He exhales deeply, as though preparing, before taking on the soulful vocals of ‘Heavy Heart’. The song, penned by his brother, is followed by two written by guitarist Drew Nix, ‘Drowning’ and ‘Devil in My Ear’. Both are singles from the recent album, and address directly what has become an integral mission statement from the band.

Brandon introduces the latter by speaking to the audience about the problems of mental health, of feeling depressed and alone and, well, drowning. It’s an important subject and one not often adequately addressed, particularly among men. It’s something I’ve attempted to tackle myself in my own writing, with my novel Void Station One following a man who decides to commit suicide by black hole, and the Strays are articulating it as well as anyone. ‘Drowning’ gets some suitably raw, torn vocals from Brandon, while the moody, bluesy ‘Devil in My Ear’ wraps itself in Sevans’ swarming organ sound and is punctuated by some fine slide guitar from its author, Drew Nix.

At this point, following the early example of his wife, who continues to roam around in her floral-print dress, Brandon removes his suit jacket. He also unslings the sunburst electric guitar he’s been playing for most of tonight’s songs, and takes a seat by Sevans Henderson at the keys. Continuing the themes by which the Strays draw much of their strength, Brandon introduces the next song as being “about feeling hopeless but trusting in Jesus anyway”. Penned by his brother Matthew, ‘Sunshine’ is a heartfelt, classic soul song, its nexus of mental health and spirituality illustrating the importance of the Seventh Stray to the band’s art and message.

‘Sunshine’ is followed by ‘Ghosts’, Brandon getting up from the keys to take centre-stage once again. Just when it feels like it’s over, the song is given a second wind, the band turning it up a notch and drummer John Hall banging away like Keith Moon incarnate. Hall’s been a busy man tonight, frequently wiping sweat from his face, bashing maniacally on his drums, leading the audience in singalongs – standing to do so, as in ‘Sunshine’ – and just all around giving the impression that he’s a man in perfect time, enjoying life in the moment.

He has even more reason to be enjoying tonight; Brandon announces to the crowd that today is John W. Hall’s 31st birthday. The drummer graciously accepts the candle-lit cake that is brought on stage, and the band enlist the crowd to sing along to ‘Happy Birthday’.

We’re halfway through a fantastic, high-energy show; with 21 songs over nearly two hours (not counting the ‘Happy Birthday’ song), the Red Clay Strays certainly provide good value for a night of live music. To the delight of the crowd, the band now step it up a notch, Drew’s slide guitar announcing ‘Wanna Be Loved’, the lead single from their new album. As Brandon strums gently on his sunburst electric guitar, the crowd sings along with him. The song is already a fan favourite.

The vibe of the next song, ‘No One Else Like Me’, is like that of Seventies road-trip music, and it is interesting to see the band shift into the lazy, good-time ease of this different gear. They soon change up, however, giving the song a mad, rocking end. While the crowd roars, Brandon takes the opportunity to swap his electric guitar for his acoustic.

Introduced as a gospel song, ‘On My Knees’ is a kinetic highlight of the night, full of praisin’ and testifyin’ as the crowd claps the rhythm. Brandon lets go, dancing energetically on the spot, his hips moving as vigorously as his legs. In such moments, you remember that American rock ‘n’ roll was once a blend of many styles, of R&B and soul and gospel and country, that Elvis was more than just a haircut and old-time America had a sense of fun and energy to its music, and that the Red Clay Strays are bringing it back. The song’s a throwback that hits home.

It’s at this point, slinging his sunburst electric guitar back on and plugging it in, that Brandon praises his brother Matthew for growing their online audience. Introducing the last Matthew-penned song of the night, the Coleman brothers have left the best for last. ‘I’m Still Fine’ is one of those songs that, in the best possible sense, sounds like you’ve heard it before. Its melody compels instant affection from the listener, and Brandon does his brother’s soulful lyrics proud, sounding like Otis Redding if Otis sang rock ‘n’ roll.

The band as a whole have been a triumph, and as they power through the rocker ‘Doin’ Time’, Brandon replaces many of the lyrics with tributes to each member of the band. The song feels like a closer, and at its end the band leave the stage, though the crowd stamps and roars for an encore. We’re still far from the end, however. For while strong songs like ‘Moments’ won’t get an airing tonight, we still haven’t heard the band’s most viral, vital song, and it’s inconceivable they’d leave the Manchester Ritz without singing it.

Brandon Coleman comes back out on stage alone, and delivers a fine acoustic rendition of ‘Will the Lord Remember Me?’ After it ends, the rest of the band come back out to join him, and Brandon relates the band’s struggles before and during the Covid times. Testifying again to their sense of purpose, the band breaks into ‘God Does’, an overt, unashamed ode to spiritual conviction. Penned by Drew Nix, it offers the guitarist another moment to shine as he breaks out the harmonica, drawing roars from the crowd.

It’s time for that viral song, and every phone is out and raised high as Brandon sings the familiar opening lines to ‘Wondering Why’. This is the song that, for one reason or another, has caught fire more than any other, though the band’s collective songwriting is so strong it could easily have been a number of the others we’ve heard tonight. Drew Nix is the one officially providing harmony vocals, along with some keen notes on his slide guitar, but everyone in the building is singing along. Behind the drums, birthday boy John Hall is singing too, and his tasteful playing shows he’s more than just a wild animal behind the kit.

It’s time for the band’s natural closer. ‘Don’t Care’ is the Red Clay Strays in their groove. The self-penned lyrics are the perfect fit for Brandon’s vocal style, and the song allows Drew and Zach Rishel to build some epic guitar sounds. The song allows John Hall to cut loose, the drummer feeling free enough to throw his sticks in the air at the most cathartic moment. This is a band in their element, when all the years of work coalesce and the end of a long, hard road must feel easy and effortless in the final moments of a song.

But we’re not done yet. “That’s usually our last song,” Brandon says, telling us “we’re in new territory now.” He heads over to join Sevans Henderson on the keys again. “We’ve been told the Beatles played here,” he says, “so we’d like to sing you a Beatles song.”

As an avid Beatles fan, it’s a special moment for me, just as it was when Billy Strings sang ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ in Manchester last year. “We don’t do this a lot,” Brandon says. “We might mess it up, we might not – don’t judge us.” I find myself thinking what song it could be, and I realise that, such is the versatility of the band and the various influences they incorporate, they could do justice to any number of them.

“Hey Jude,” Brandon sings, piecing together the famous notes on the piano. The crowd picks up on it immediately, and sings along. It’s a rough-and-ready version of ‘Hey Jude’, and as everyone joins in on the famous extended ‘na-na-na-nah’ outro, Brandon’s voice proving well-suited for Paul McCartney’s scat-singing, the Red Clay Strays put their own fingerprint on the song. The tempo increases, with Zach providing a wailing guitar solo and John thrashing his Ludwig drums as Ringo never did. While the other Strays continue to stoke the fire, Brandon gets up from the keys and bows separately to each side of the stage, taking in the applause of the crowd and waving as he does so.

The band play on, the crowd continue to sing, but all good nights of music must end, and at some point it stops. The band bow and wave as the crowd cheers and applauds, and they leave the stage. John Hall, the birthday boy, turns gift-giver, leaning forward from the front of the stage and handing one of his drumsticks to someone a few feet away from me. He raises his beer in salute to the crowd which is now filtering out into the night, and jumps on the back of a roadie. The obliging roadie gives him a running piggyback off the stage, to the cheers of those of us who remain.

But these guys don’t need to be carried. The Red Clay Strays are flying.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Made By These Moments, unless noted)

  1. Ramblin’ (The Red Clay Strays/Dave Cobb)
  2. Stone’s Throw (Drew Nix/Eric Erdman) (from Moment of Truth)
  3. Forgive (Matthew Coleman) (from Moment of Truth)
  4. Disaster (M. Coleman)
  5. Good Godly Woman (Brandon Coleman/Nix/Brandon Rickman) (single)
  6. Moment of Truth (M. Coleman) (from Moment of Truth)
  7. Heavy Heart (M. Coleman) (from Moment of Truth)
  8. Drowning (Nix)
  9. Devil in My Ear (Nix)
  10. Sunshine (M. Coleman) (from Moment of Truth)
  11. Ghosts (Nix) (from Moment of Truth)
  12. Happy Birthday (Patty Hill/Mildred J. Hill) (unreleased)
  13. Wanna Be Loved (M. Coleman/Dakota Coleman)
  14. No One Else Like Me (B. Coleman/M. Coleman)
  15. On My Knees (The Red Clay Strays/Cobb)
  16. I’m Still Fine (M. Coleman)
  17. Doin’ Time (Nix) (from Moment of Truth)
  18. Will the Lord Remember Me? (E. M. Bartlett) (single)
  19. God Does (Nix)
  20. Wondering Why (B. Coleman/Nix/Dan Couch) (from Moment of Truth)
  21. Don’t Care (B. Coleman) (from Moment of Truth)
  22. Hey Jude (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) (unreleased)

The novel mentioned in this review, Void Station One, can be found here.

We’re Not in Hays, Kansas Anymore: 49 Winchester Live on 34 Hanover

June 7, 2024 /

Tuesday 28th May 2024

New Century Hall, Manchester, England

The first clue, had I recognised it as such, came the moment I entered the New Century Hall on Manchester’s Hanover Street and heard Charley Crockett’s ‘I Need Your Love’ playing over the tannoy. Further songs will be played while we wait for tonight’s musicians to take the stage, including ones from Sierra Ferrell and Tyler Childers, but it is the initial Son of Davy nudge which gives us an indication as to how 49 Winchester will set about their attack.

When I first saw Charley Crockett live, I was taken aback by how quickly he cycled through his songs, and I described it, on that Halloween night, as like a possessed jukebox. The Southern country-rockers 49 Winchester take a similar approach tonight; the six members of the band coming out locked and loaded and bursting straight into ‘Chemistry’. They immediately show why they have a reputation as a stellar live act; tonight’s ‘Chemistry’ immediately surpasses the album version. It’s a propulsive, rocking song to begin their set, and allows each member of the band to quickly find their feet. Singer-songwriter Isaac Gibson is front and centre, instantly recognisable with his trademark sunglasses and long beard. He is noticeably, commendably, leaner than in previous years. He stands legs apart and strums vigorously on his electric guitar.

Behind him, Justin Louthian sets the propulsive beat with his drums. From my vantage point right-of-centre amongst the crowd, keys player Tim Hall is not visible, though I can certainly hear his swirling organ sound. On the opposite side of the stage, dressed in a white ten-gallon hat and polo shirt, Noah Patrick provides some delicious pedal steel. Standing ahead of them, Isaac continues to sing and strum, flanked by Chase Chafin on bass and Bus Shelton on lead guitar. These are the two other founding members of 49 Winchester – the band named not for the iconic repeating rifle which won the Old West but the Appalachian street on which they formed.

You could be forgiven for recalling the rapid-fire of that famous gun, however, for no sooner has ‘Chemistry’ finished and the band drunk in the cheers of the crowd than they have started up ‘Hays, Kansas’. Isaac Gibson delivers the personal lyrics with a tender, soulful tone that’s still rugged enough to avoid being torn apart by the Skynyrd-esque guitars. There will be a display of musicianship (and songwriting) tonight that makes you want to tip 49 Winchester as heirs-apparent to Lynyrd Skynyrd, that greatest of all Southern rock bands, though 49’s sound is their own: broader, inquisitive. Sometimes rock, sometimes soul, sometimes more solidly country.

At times it can feel like the band remain one truly great song away from such greatness, or at least from establishing themselves as one of the major players in this incredible country/roots scene which has blossomed in recent years, but there’s still no shortage of crowd favourites tonight. The next song, a faster-paced ‘All I Need’, is one of them, with its line about having a “pretty good dog that don’t shit in the house” drawing a whoop from the crowd.

Pausing only for Isaac to switch his electric guitar for an acoustic, the band show their best years are still ahead of them with a fast, well-received rendition of ‘Yearnin’ for You’, the lead single from their much-anticipated new album, characterised by some fine pedal steel from Noah Patrick. The name of that album? ‘Leavin’ This Holler’, out in August, with the song of the same name next up tonight. With its slower pace and plaintive singing from Isaac, I have a feeling we’re not in Hays, Kansas anymore, Toto. This band are going places.

49 Winchester continue to spread their wings, with a funky, upbeat ‘Fortune Favors the Bold’ followed by the idiosyncratic ‘It’s a Shame’. Until this point, the band have pursued that Crockett-esque jukebox approach to the setlist, and while that may still be said of the rest of the night, ‘It’s a Shame’ is the first sign tonight yet that theirs is a many-stringed bow. In many ways, ‘Shame’ is a straight-up country honky-tonker, though between Isaac yodelling and Bus Shelton bending notes on his guitar’s whammy bar it is, first and foremost, a 49 Winchester song, and the crowd loves it.

Switching back to an electric guitar, Isaac leads the band into the bluesy ‘Everlasting Lover’, notable for a wailing guitar solo, before another highlight of the night: ‘Long Hard Life’. The crowd claps and sings along to this country-blues number, driven by a crunching guitar riff and drummer Justin Louthian’s propulsive beat. Up front, Isaac nods his head as though satisfied with the groove, a subtle but endearing tell that you can notice many a time tonight as he sings. As a frontman he focuses more on excelling as a singer and guitar-player than on lengthy song introductions or stage banter. But in truth, the reserved showmanship makes it all the more thrilling when Isaac does choose to kick loose, as he does at various points tonight with a literal kick into the air or an open-mouthed rush towards Bus on lead guitar.

“Let’s hear it for Drayton Farley,” Isaac says, drawing cheers and applause from the crowd. Drayton Farley had been tonight’s opening act, and while in front of the microphone he had confided the uncertainty that comes with being a solo acoustic act on a stage, it was a strong performance from the Alabaman singer-songwriter. Opening with ‘Something Wrong (Inside My Head)’ and closing with ‘Pitchin’ Fits’, the highlights of the 11-song set included ‘Lucinda’ (“every country singer has to have a murder ballad,” Farley says) and a tender ‘Blue Collar’. But it is the unreleased ‘Dream Come True’ which proves his stand-out song. Drayton introduces it by confiding the story of his wife’s miscarriages and their eventual success in starting a family, and the hopefulness and gratitude in the song silences the crowd.

Later on in the night, the crowd primed by Farley’s performance and by a 49 Winchester halfway through their own set, Isaac Gibson says he’s going to “slow it down now”. He must have a different perspective on speed than the rest of us, for the next number, ‘So Damn Sweet’, is still pretty rocking, with Bus and Chase swapping positions as they stalk across the stage. And, the song over, the crowd is hardly likely to want to behave mildly for the next one.

“I want you to sing along to this next one if you know it,” Isaac announces, and the crowd oblige, joining in from the very first line of ‘Russell County Line’. I mentioned earlier how it can sometimes feel like 49 Winchester is one song away from true greatness, and while that song may remain elusive, out there in the creative ether for Isaac Gibson to pluck at some appointed time, ‘Russell County Line’ has come pretty damn close. There’s a remarkable alchemy found in music that means with a few chords those of us who have never been within an ocean’s-width of Russell County, Virginia, can be made to feel deeply homesick for the place when hearing the song. The strings of Bus and Noah punctuate Tim Hall’s piano notes as the song builds and builds and then, in that magnificent Southern-rock moment, breaks, with Isaac himself taking the cathartic solo on his electric guitar. There are deserved claps and roars from the crowd at the end of the song, drawing a fist pump from Isaac.

Their essence distilled in ‘Russell County Line’, the band now change tack, with some surprisingly adept harmonies announcing ‘Annabel’. The piano lead-in for its follow-up, ‘Damn Darlin”, prompts Isaac to ask the ladies and gentlemen to give a hand for Tim Hall on the piano. The crowd obliges, and after Isaac counts them – and the band – in, they also sing along to this fan favourite. The song is made by Tim’s swirling organ sound.

Next up is another major highlight of the night, with Justin’s drums announcing a new song, a crunching rocker called ‘Make it Count’. It’s a fantastic number with a guitar riff that recalls the Rolling Stones, the echoes of those ageless rockers an irony given that Isaac’s lyrics are about growing up and “creeping up on 30”.

After this song, the band return to a more familiar 49 Winchester sound, with the epic Appalachia-soul of ‘Second Chance’ and ‘Don’t Speak’. The former in particular is excellent in a live setting, the sort of song Isaac can just belt out with soulful abandon and fill the room. The band follow this one-two punch with another strong new song that suggests the August release date for the new album cannot come soon enough. ‘(I Think I Should Have Stayed In) Tulsa’ distinguishes itself with a fine guitar solo from Isaac.

“Laast caaallll,” Isaac drawls into the microphone, announcing the final song of their set. ‘Last Call’ is a straight-up rocker, with a guitar line that recalls ZZ Top even more than Isaac’s beard does, and it’s a fine way for 49 Winchester to sign off. The band leave the stage to well-earned cheers, Isaac grinning from ear to ear. As a live act, they’ve knocked it out of the park.

Tonight’s songs have been delivered fast and furious and, unusually for a guitar band of this makeup, there have been no extended solos or other indulgences. The band have hewn close to the album cuts of the songs, and the setlist, I learn later, is also identical in both content and sequencing to other dates of the tour. When I consider these two observations, I do find myself wishing the band had explored themselves more on the stage, confident in their excellent musicianship. But what you cannot deny is the sheer energy of the set; the crunching rhythms and the soaring organ, the guitar solos and Isaac’s soulful vocals. Each moment enhances the album cuts with greater vigour and live power.

And they’re not done yet: Isaac slinks back on stage like a hillbilly Conor McGregor, the band joining him. They attack their encore song with characteristic gusto, ‘Hillbilly Happy’ proving one final, full-energy treat for the crowd. “I wanna get a picture of y’all,” Isaac says, and the crowd collectively raise their arms in the air as the band’s photographer captures the moment. When they formed their band a decade ago on 49 Winchester Street in Castlewood, Virginia, I doubt it would’ve even occurred to them that they might one day be playing packed venues on the other side of the ocean, making a horde of Britons feel homesick for a Russell County line they’ve never even seen.

The band leave the stage, this time for good. ‘The Party’s Over’ comes on over the tannoy as the crowd begins to filter out. “All good things must end,” Willie Nelson sings, but you get the sense that 49 Winchester are only just getting started.

Setlist:

(all songs written by Isaac Gibson, unless noted)

  1. Chemistry (from III)
  2. Hays, Kansas (from III)
  3. All I Need (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  4. Yearnin’ for You (Gibson/Matt Koziol) (from Leavin’ This Holler)
  5. Leavin’ This Holler (Gibson/Stewart Myers) (from Leavin’ This Holler)
  6. Fortune Favors the Bold (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  7. It’s a Shame (from III)
  8. Everlasting Lover (from III)
  9. Long Hard Life (from III)
  10. So Damn Sweet (from The Wind)
  11. Russell County Line (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  12. Annabel (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  13. Damn Darlin’ (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  14. Make it Count (Gibson/Myers) (from Leavin’ This Holler)
  15. Second Chance (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  16. Don’t Speak (from The Wind)
  17. Tulsa (Gibson/Myers) (from Leavin’ This Holler)
  18. Last Call (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
  19. Encore: Hillbilly Happy (from Leavin’ This Holler)

Tyler Childers vs. the Philistines: Live in Manchester

February 26, 2024 /

Monday 19th February 2024

O2 Apollo, Manchester, England

For each and every gig I’ve attended in this country music and roots scene (with the occasional blade of bluegrass thrown in), I’ve made the claim in one way or another that it’s the best gig I’ve attended. And to be sure, each of those gigs has had an element to them that has marked them as special in some way, and makes it impossible to choose between them.

Unfortunately, there’s no chance of continuing that praise here. Though it should be stressed that it’s no fault of any of the musicians on stage, the O2 Apollo on Monday night is by far the worst night of live music I’ve ever attended. And the sole reason is that a good third of the thousands-strong Manchester crowd is absolute dogshit.

Ever since starting these concert reviews I’ve been aware that I’m not qualified to critique the music itself, having no musical ability of my own. So instead I’ve always pivoted to providing narratives of the night – the venue, the atmosphere, the ebb and flow as a singer or band takes an audience where they want them and everyone becomes lost in the music.

But it’s impossible to provide a positive narrative of this particular night. Tyler Childers will prove to be in good voice, his band is rocking, and his opening act is stellar. But, due to the ignorance of perhaps a thousand or so philistines among the crowd, it’s hard to even hear them at all.

You know that background chatter you hear at the start of every live event? That swarming, dominating white-noise of conversation as the venue fills? Usually it tails off when the opening act starts their set; at worst, it continues until the main act takes the stage. But tonight, from first moment to last, at least a third of tonight’s massive crowd on the venue floor just carry on loud conversations (not always drunken ones) and not even paying attention to the music. It’s not even a chatter that grows progressively louder as the night goes on and people become more drunken and uninhibited – something I’ve experienced and accepted at other gigs. It is, as I say, there from first moment to last, and drunkenness cannot even be used as an (already-flimsy) excuse.

It makes me ashamed of my city. And the one who I feel I should apologise to the most is John R. Miller, tonight’s opening act, who graciously endures the outright disrespect. I would apologise to him not on behalf of those who talk incessantly throughout his set, for no doubt they don’t even see what they are doing wrong, and I would find more empathy and intelligence in the venue’s urinal cakes, but out of a general guilt of association, a shame at being a part of this “audience”.

I remember how lucky I felt when this tour was announced and it was stated that Miller would be opening. He would be a draw by himself, and to have him on the same bill as Tyler Childers was a real gift – a gift, it turns out, that Manchester squanders. As this excellent, sophisticated songwriter takes the stage and begins singing and strumming on his acoustic guitar, much of the audience blithely ignores him and continues their relentless chatter. Miller runs through what I think are ‘Smokestacks on the Skyline’ and ‘Shenandoah Shakedown’, but as I can only hear the occasional snatched lyric here and there, I can’t say for sure. As he gifts us a third, ‘Lookin’ Over My Shoulder’, I look over my shoulder to try to fathom the mass stupidity taking place around me.

At this point, I’m disappointed rather than angry. Maybe, I think, the audience just needs to settle. It’s tough being the opening act, particularly when your songs are lyrically complex and all you have is an acoustic guitar. After a barely discernible ‘Harpers Ferry Moon’, Miller graciously tries to interact with the crowd, but his folksy “How y’all doin?” barely gathers a murmur from the crowd. He goes through another number which I believe is ‘Ditcher’, but again I can’t make it out. Some of the worthless crowd finish their beers and queue for another one, grumbling loudly at the inconvenience of doing so. Others just stand around, yammering away and scrolling through their TikToks on full brightness. Miller casts another pearl at these swine, the unreleased ‘Outset of the Breeze’.

There’s then a moment that should have been special, had the crowd been good. John R. Miller begins to strum and sing the opening lines of ‘Coming Down’. If there was any one opportunity for tonight’s crowd to redeem themselves and begin to engage with the music, this was it. ‘Coming Down’ has, of course, been covered by Tyler Childers, and tonight’s throng of (presumably) Tyler Childers fans should recognise it. It should be a moment of goodwill and maybe even a moment for Miller to hear his song sung back at him. Instead, it is swamped by the white-noise ignorance. “Remember you ain’t alone,” Miller sings, beautifully (as far as I can make out). But I bet he feels alone right about now.

After ‘Coming Down’ has been dragged down to the audience’s level and sullied, Miller actually breaks through with what follows. ‘Conspiracies, Cults and UFOs’ is a more up-tempo number, strummed more energetically. Because of this it smothers some of the ignorant noise, but only briefly. The following songs, which as best I can make out are ‘Motor’s Fried’ and ‘Faustina’, are pretty much made unintelligible by the Manchester crowd. Miller leaves the stage, graciously thanking the audience – something which makes me feel even more ashamed. I can scarcely believe we’ve been gifted a full 10-song set by a talented singer-songwriter, before the main event has even started, and it’s been completely drowned out. I waited a long time to hear John R. Miller live in concert. I still haven’t.

At this point, I think that the worst must be over. The Manchester crowd has been unforgivably disrespectful to Miller, but surely that wouldn’t continue into Tyler’s set. In the lull between acts, however, the noise actually picks up a gear – almost as though those responsible are pleased with themselves for being considerate of others and keeping it low during the music. The queue for the bar grows and grows – it’s a Monday night, for Pete’s sake – and the floor of the venue becomes almost like a social event or conference. Not for the first time, and unfortunately not for the last, I get the impression that tonight is seen by many as a pub crawl or a social media networking event, with live music attached but safely ignored.

Tyler and his band now take the stage, to cheers – the crowd for once making a noise it ought to. Surely now we’ll be able to focus on the music. Staggeringly, the mass obnoxious nattering continues, but at least now it is competing against an amplified band. Rod Elkins’ booming drums on the opener, a fiery ‘Honky Tonk Flame’, overpowers some of the witless mob, but it shouldn’t need to be a competition. About a thousand people tonight are suffering from Main Character Syndrome – contemptible behaviour when they are faced with the far more evident talents of John R. Miller and Tyler Childers.

The disruptive nattering continues, though James ‘Bloodbath’ Barker proves to be able to bark louder on his guitar on the second song, a fast-tempo ‘Way of the Triune God’. Alternating between electric guitar and pedal steel tonight, he will battle gamely against the ignorant mob alongside his bandmates. Stood alongside Barker is “the Professor” Jesse Wells on fiddle and electric guitar. Behind him is the afore-mentioned Rod Elkins in a bright red shirt, on those booming drums. Tyler is at centre-stage in a bright orange jacket, sometimes on acoustic guitar and, during some songs tonight, removing the instrument completely and gesturing with his hands as he sings. On the left-hand side, behind Tyler, Craig Burletic lurks on his bass, his head bopping along. C.J. Cain strums an acoustic guitar on the far-left side, and on a raised platform a man in a cap sits behind the organ and keys. (It’s not Chase Lewis, the keys player from the band’s previous visit to England. Later tonight, Tyler will introduce the man by name but, of course, it’s drowned out by the chatter of the crowd. I learn later that it’s Jimmy Rowland.)

“It’s lovely to be in Manchester – with you,” Tyler says after ‘Way of the Triune God’. The crowd cheers, but Tyler’s compliment is more than we deserve. He mustn’t have heard Miller’s reception earlier tonight (the poor man might as well have had eggs thrown at him), for if he had he would surely have something to say about our treatment of his friend. I was there in London last year when Tyler stopped mid-song to break up a fight that was taking place in the crowd. But on that night in Islington the fight was the only blemish. If this time around Tyler was to direct security to throw out the disruptive elements, it would be like a Looney Tunes sketch – up to a thousand people would be out on their arse. Maybe Tyler does know, and is just trying to salvage something from what’s quickly becoming a shitty night.

“I’ve got a new album out,” Tyler says, to half-hearted cheers. “That song wasn’t on it. This song was.” And with that he launches into ‘Percheron Mules’. The band is game even if the audience, in their still-ceaseless chatter, isn’t. Jesse Wells provides a ripping solo, and everyone in the band gets a chance to shine. There are some nice harmonies, a feat repeated on the following song, ‘Born Again’, but I’m not really in a position to say much about the songs. About any of the songs tonight. I find myself having to strain to hear, my brain working hard to try and filter out the overwhelming mass of garbage noise which is smothering the sound I have paid – and waited months – to hear.

The next song, ‘In Your Love’, actually gets a good reception, receiving some whoops and a decent singalong. But it doesn’t last, and ‘Country Squire’, which follows, is drowned out by the returning wave of crowd chatter. It was ‘Country Squire’ which was paused mid-song in London last year, as Tyler directed security to break up a fight, and in my review I marked this as ‘Country Squire (with Bellend Interlude)’. This time around, the poor crowd behaviour is not an interlude but a full-blown Bellend Orchestra, and one that has not paused any one song but disrupted each and every one.

Straight from ‘Country Squire’, Tyler and the band dig out a slightly grungy version of ‘Bus Route’, its twisting lyrics unfortunately washed out by the mob. There follows a pretty killer version of ‘Deadman’s Curve’, though the funky groove is lost on the unappreciative audience, as is the screaming guitar from Jesse Wells.

“I ain’t never been to Manchester [before],” Tyler says to cheers, and at the risk of beating a dead horse in this review, the moment gets me thinking again about the lost opportunity tonight. “There are 110 things you could’ve done with your evening,” he says, “and you chose to be here, so thank you.” But it seems like many have decided to show up for no reason at all – certainly not to listen to any music – and furthermore they disrupt the show for those who did put 110 things aside because they wanted to listen to some Tyler Childers music.

“I’ve played this with every band I’ve ever sung in,” Tyler says, introducing the next song. He gives us a potted history of the bands he started out in, and an anecdote about a competition he came third-place in, but I’m unable to hear any of the details above the noise. As Tyler smiles and tries to shares his story with his fans, everyone beyond the first few rows is consumed by the incessant selfish wankery of the mob.

Tyler then roars into ‘Trudy’, the Charlie Daniels song he has just tried to introduce, and it’s a freewheelin’ version in which every member of the band will have an opportunity to shine. Guitar lines are traded between Bloodbath Barker and Jesse Wells, before a long organ solo from the man on the keys. The Bellend Orchestra, still suffering from their Main Character Syndrome, provide their own lyrics of gormless chatter over this organ line from the band, and drown out the following bass solo from Craig Burletic. ‘Trudy’ ends as every other song tonight ends; an exercise in frustration for those of us who actually came to hear Tyler Childers and the Food Stamps tonight.

Next up there’s a brief break in the rain of crowd ignorance, as people recognise the first lines of ‘All Your’n’ and begin to sing along. Tyler has put down his guitar and gestures with his hands as he sings, with thousands joining in, “I’m all your’n – you’re all mine”. While there’s still been some chatter, the song’s come over well and it’s a bittersweet example of what could have been, had the crowd been good.

Unfortunately, the music will now sink completely into the pit of ignorance dug by the crowd. The band leaves the stage and Tyler pulls up a chair and sits down with his acoustic guitar. People are talking over him, but from what I can make out he’s talking about how C.J. Cain was surprised he was “gonna do [his] acoustic set in the middle”.

With that, Tyler starts to strum and sing ‘Matthew’, from the Country Squire album, and you can see that maybe C.J. was right in having some reservations. Tyler now faces the same problem as John R. Miller did in his set; his voice may be more powerful, but the crowd bluster will still wipe out a set of acoustic music. ‘Matthew’ is not a fan favourite and so, bafflingly, many in the crowd here on the floor treat it like an intermission. The chatter of conversations increases in volume, and many stream towards the bar to queue for another drink, or head to the toilets to release the better part of themselves.

Unlike ‘Matthew’, the next song, ‘Shake the Frost’, is a fan favourite and does get a bit of a singalong, but it’s a far cry from the full-blooded singalong I encountered in London last year. Many are still milling around and treating it as an intermission, and after ‘Frost’ Tyler is still trying to engage with the audience. “It’s my first time in Manchester,” he says, and at the mention of the city’s name those who have been facing away from the stage, having their own conversations or queuing for alcohol, turn around and join the rest of the crowd in whooping and cheering.

I’m not opposed to singalongs or whooping; when done well, it can be magical for a night of music. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in awe as a Manchester crowd sang along cathartically to Oliver Anthony’s ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’. But tonight it’s like people have gained admittance to Theme Park Tyler, and are chatting to pass the time while stood in the queue for their favourite rides, the moments they can whoop along to. Drown out Miller, and drown out ‘Matthew’, but get your phone out for ‘All Your’n’, so that the moment can be uploaded to TikTok as an ‘I was there’ moment. With the emphasis on ‘I’.

The remaining two songs of Tyler’s acoustic set, ‘Nose on the Grindstone’ and ‘Lady May’, get a sort of warped reaction: some people sing along and others talk through them. In London, ‘Lady May’ received a warm and crisp singalong, but here it’s washed out by the mindless chatter. So far in the night my anger and frustration has been tempered by sheer bafflement, but after ‘Lady May’, with the acoustic set ending and the band coming back on stage, I end up arguing with a couple of lads stood just behind me. They’ve been having a full-blown conversation for some time now, talking about nothing, looking side-on at one another and not even engaging with the music. Again I think of how so much behaviour tonight has been as though this were a pub or club and the music just an after-thought, and I find myself asking them why they even paid to come here if they weren’t going to pay attention to any of the music. It’s a question I’d like to ask upwards of a thousand people tonight, and these two are just the closest. They have no answer. They just stare at me dumbly.

My blood’s up now, and that takes a lot – I don’t really drink (I haven’t tonight) and in my previous reviews I’ve mentioned how I’m pretty much a wallflower at the gigs I attend. But I can’t fathom chattering ignorantly with your mate while, on the other side of the room, Tyler goddamn Childers is singing ‘Lady May’. It’s one of many examples tonight of astonishing fucking ignorance. My anger means I can’t even enjoy the music which, in rare moments, continues to break through the wall of sound erected by the crowd.

The band’s back now, and bring some excellent slide to Tyler’s cover of ‘Help Me Make it Through the Night’. I wonder if any of us are going to make it. Then there’s a surprise: I can scarcely believe my ears as they pick up the opening notes of ‘Whitehouse Road’. When I was in London, this was a song repeatedly shouted out by members of the audience, and which Tyler repeatedly refused. The shouts were a blemish – a small one – on an excellent night, and I didn’t expect Tyler to begin including the song in his setlists again. Just a couple of weeks ago, at the Oliver Anthony gig, the opening act gave us a vibing cover of ‘Whitehouse Road’, and I wrote in my review that it was a good consolation prize considering Tyler himself was unlikely to sing it.

And yet here Tyler is, singing that very song. It settles into a great groove and raises the prospect that perhaps Tyler is rehabilitating some old favourites that he thought had been overplayed. The London crowd would have loved it – particularly those hecklers – but the Manchester crowd treats it as it does every other song tonight. In spite of this, ‘Whitehouse Road’ still sounds good over the relentless chatter.

Tyler and the band busting out a powerful version of ‘Old Country Church’ that even the crowd can’t spoil. At its end, Tyler says how good it is to be “here in Manchester – with my friends” (referencing the lyrics of ‘Old Country Church’). He then gives an extended introduction of each member of the band. It’s the same entertaining circus-ringleader spiel he gave in London, only this time the crowd drowns it out, and when the new keys player is introduced I can’t hear his name. The man I later learn is Jimmy Rowland stands and takes off his hat and bows.

While Tyler has been making these introductions, the band have been playing bars from ‘Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?’, and as their frontman finishes speaking the song begins. It’s one of my favourite songs and comes across well, although, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the enjoyment is tempered by the backdraft of the mob’s nest-spoiling ambience.

Jimmy Rowland then begins some soaring organ notes and chanting ‘Hare Krishna’; the left-field oddness seems to jolt some of the crowd out of their imbecility, as from here on out the crowd disruption – while never going away – seems to become less voluble. The Hare Krishna chants lead into a pretty kicking ‘Two Coats’ instrumental but, incredibly, I begin to see people leaving the hall entirely and heading into the foyer. It’s as though we were in a football stadium in the last five minutes of a match, two-nil down, and had to beat the traffic.

If it’s a comment on the band it’s embarrassing behaviour, particularly as the music’s been good on the rare occasions those same people, pausing for breath, have allowed it to come through. But I don’t think it is; it’s just the low attention-span of a crowd that had never paid much attention to the music anyway, and were now wandering away to their next witless endeavour.

It’s been a small number who have left, and many still remain who are chattering amongst themselves, but a little goes a long way and the next few numbers are the most aurally clear of the night. It helps that ‘Tulsa Turnaround’, which follows ‘Two Coats’, is a loud, rocking number, with Tyler roaring the vocals of this Kenny Rogers cover.

Next up is ‘House Fire’, one of the best Tyler songs to hear live. The audience stomps along with their feet, but the moment is less special than the same foot-stomp I heard when the song was played in London. The band has set the song alight on both occasions, but it’s not their fault that this particular night has been less special. In an act of self-sabotage, Manchester has clipped their wings. Many no longer seem into it; as I look over the crowd there’s very little swaying or groove as the song takes off.

From my vantage point, the audience seems pretty zombie-like. ‘Universal Sound’, which follows ‘House Fire’, gets another singalong, but the only universal sound in the O2 Apollo tonight continues to be the chatter of large elements of the crowd. For the final number, Tyler puts his whole heart into a cover of ‘Space and Time’. It’s a grandstand finish for a night that, regrettably, had no chance of living on in the memory.

At every gig I’ve attended there have been memorable moments, but as I stand and watch the crowd filter out – noting, with a shake of my head, that they are talking less now than they were when the music was playing – I can’t put my finger on any such moment tonight. After London last year, whenever I was listening to music and ‘Shake the Frost’ or ‘House Fire’ came on, the songs were sweeter for having that memory of how they had been played. Through no fault of their own, the band haven’t really been allowed to deliver any special moments tonight. Live music is a two-way street; it’s a reciprocal miracle.

In the days following the night at the O2 Apollo, I will have one or two reservations about the gig. The setlist wasn’t that much different from the one in London a year previously; four songs in Manchester tonight came from Tyler’s new album, and I had heard one of them (‘Percheron Mules’) in London and two of the others were covers. Considering Tyler is such a fantastic songwriter, with a wealth of both released and unreleased music, it seems a shame that the setlist is so similar. And that Rustin’ in the Rain, the new album being toured tonight, has just seven songs – including two covers.

But in truth, this was just me trying to think of how the night could have been different, what idiot-proof formula could have been concocted to extinguish that one overriding memory of the night: the relentless, obnoxious crowd chatter which disrupted each and every song. I have the London show to compare against the night, but while the London show was superior it wouldn’t have mattered if the crowd had willed it to be a good night tonight. The music could have been special had we been allowed, by our fellow “fans”, to actually hear it. A great many people in the Manchester audience should be ashamed of themselves, and for those like myself who came to hear the music, the lasting memory of the night will be one of bitter frustration. When Tyler claimed earlier in the night that he’d never been to Manchester before, he was mistaken (he played the Manchester Academy in January 2020). I find myself hoping he forgets tonight’s embarrassing encounter with the city as well.

As the crowd filters out of the O2 Apollo, the Tom Petty song ‘Runnin’ Down a Dream’ comes on over the tannoy. The moment feels bittersweet. I mentioned in my London review that when a couple of Tom Petty songs came on after the band left the stage, it was a remarkable moment of kismet for me. As I wrote in my review, I had made no effort to attend a Tom Petty concert in the years before he died, and so going down to London and making sure I didn’t pass up another opportunity for fine music felt vindicated when I heard those songs.

Certainly, had I waited until Tyler was coming to Manchester, I would have had to wait until tonight – and have it ruined by a disruptive, ignorant crowd. As sickening as tonight’s lost opportunity has been, it would have been worse if this had been my first experience of Tyler Childers live – as it surely has been for others tonight. Ours is the city that once shouted “Judas!” at Bob Dylan when it was felt (wrongly) that he had disrespected the music. To our shame, we have now provided justification for an artist to shout it back at us.

Setlist:

(all songs written by Tyler Childers, unless noted)

  1. Honky Tonk Flame (from Purgatory)
  2. Way of the Triune God (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  3. Percheron Mules (from Rustin’ in the Rain)
  4. Born Again (from Purgatory)
  5. In Your Love (Childers/Geno Seale) (from Rustin’ in the Rain)
  6. Country Squire (from Country Squire)
  7. Bus Route (from Country Squire)
  8. Deadman’s Curve (from Live on Red Barn Radio)
  9. Trudy (Charlie Daniels) (unreleased)
  10. All Your’n (from Country Squire)
  11. Matthew (from Country Squire)
  12. Shake the Frost (from Live on Red Barn Radio)
  13. Nose on the Grindstone (unreleased)
  14. Lady May (from Purgatory)
  15. Help Me Make it Through the Night (Kris Kristofferson) (from Rustin’ in the Rain)
  16. Whitehouse Road (from Purgatory)
  17. Old Country Church (J. W. Vaughn) (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  18. Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  19. Two Coats (Traditional) (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  20. Tulsa Turnaround (Alex Harvey/Larry Collins) (unreleased)
  21. House Fire (from Country Squire)
  22. Universal Sound (from Purgatory)
  23. Space and Time (S. G. Goodman) (from Rustin’ in the Rain)

The Richest Man in the World: Oliver Anthony Live in Manchester

February 11, 2024 /

Thursday 8th February 2024

Albert Hall, Manchester, England

“But he knoweth the way that I take;

when he hath tried me,

I shall come forth as gold.”

JOB 23:10

I had been wondering how it would go tonight. The unassuming, down-to-earth Chris Lunsford came out of nowhere and had greatness thrust upon him last August when, under the stage name Oliver Anthony, he released ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ and the song immediately went viral. Overnight, he became one of the most talked-about people in the world. No one would be prepared for such a change but, having handled it well so far, would he be able to take it on the road? Would he stumble under the spotlights? Would he lack the stagecraft of a more seasoned performer who had worked his way up as an opening act and regular tourer? All of Chris’ songs released so far have been recorded on a Samsung mobile, and while they are fine songs, would an audience stay engaged throughout a whole set? Or would their attention wander after the viral ‘Richmond’ is played?

I do not wonder any more. Thursday night at the Manchester Albert Hall will prove to be perhaps the most intoxicating live experience I’ve had: powerful, communal and cathartic, as though movement is being made in things you did not even know could move. And any concern is banished immediately, for before Oliver Anthony has even finished climbing the steps to the stage, that distinctive shock of orange beard has been recognised by the crowd, and they begin to cheer and sing with one voice…

But before that moment comes, I had had my doubts – though perhaps it was more curiosity than doubt. Certainly, I’d had time to ponder as I joined the long line to enter the venue, not knowing for sure it was the right queue but reasoning from all the cowboy hats perched on heads that it must be so. The queue snakes around the block; some bemused passers-by must surely be wondering what Rudy’s, the Neapolitan pizza place next door, have put in their pepperoni to become so popular tonight. But the line moves quickly once the doors open and, after an inevitable detour to the merchandise stand, I easily find a place on the front rail, with the empty stage just above me. But I’ve always been more wallflower than rail-rider, and before the hall gets too busy I decide to abandon the spot and head upstairs to the mezzanine, where I’m happier with a seat on one of the steps just to the right of the stage.

The night’s music is begun by Caleb Dillard, looking every inch the Virginia hillbilly in a grey check shirt and sweatpants, with a navy blue hat pressed down tight on a mass of long dark-blond hair. But his music surprises where his appearance does not; the self-penned ‘Ol’ Red’ and ‘Deceived’ display a deep country croon and a quick-fingered blues guitar. The songs are well-received by the audience, prompting a decent singalong of the Rolling Stones’ ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, with Caleb’s use of a pedalboard to play two guitar lines the same technical doohickey I saw used by Billy Strings in concert a few months ago.

Speaking of Billy Strings, Caleb follows up with a cover of ‘Must Be Seven’, before another self-penned song, ‘Son of an Angel’, brings more dextrous displays on the acoustic guitar. The song stands well among the more storied covers in Caleb’s setlist, as does ‘Run Away’, which follows. Caleb closes with a cover of Tyler Childers’ ‘Whitehouse Road’, and considering Tyler is unlikely to play it when he comes to Manchester himself in less than two weeks – having refused to do so in London the last time he came to England – this is a neat consolation. The song is a vibe, and in Caleb’s hands it caps off a fine opening set.

After Caleb leaves the stage, the crowd chatters and shuffles patiently while awaiting the big man himself. A sustained roar passes through the crowd as Oliver Anthony finally takes the stage of a sold-out Albert Hall, just six months after he uploaded a raw, heartfelt song to YouTube and went about his day. He responds to the roar by raising his arms triumphantly in the air. Remarkably, the action strikes me as humble; Oliver/Chris seems completely at ease with the adoration, but with none of the arrogance which another performer might well feel on such a reception.

“Manchester, how the hell are you this evening?” he says, to cheers. He looks around the venue, a former Methodist chapel in the Baroque style, with crucifixes still showing in the ornate, decorated windows up here in the mezzanine where I sit. “We couldn’t ask for a better venue or a better city to play in,” he says. “I mean, these walls are thick but I can hear y’all clear as day back there,” he says over the roar of the crowd, before praising Caleb Dillard’s opening set.

Caleb himself is back on stage; he has put down the guitar and hoists a great stand-up bass from the floor. Caleb will be Oliver Anthony’s bass player for the rest of the night, with Joey Davis getting a chance to show his talent on acoustic guitar. Oliver Anthony, for his part, is behind his already-iconic Resonator guitar, though this silver-and-iron-looking instrument is different from the one in his viral video.

All pictures taken from my own Samsung mobile (with rather less success on the device than Chris has had).

Speaking of that viral video, tonight’s crowd – already bursting with energy – seem to decide that if this is the elephant in the room, it’s going to come stampeding through the walls. While the boys on stage tune up, the crowd begins an impromptu singing of ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’, from beginning to end, word for word. Chris grins bashfully – “y’all sing better than I do,” he says – but it’s an incredible, spontaneous moment, testament to the chord this song has struck with so many people.

Some commentators may pick apart or take issue with certain lyrics in the song, but what they fail to appreciate is its sheer cathartic power. The problems of our current age are numerous, but it seems to me that one of the underlying reasons why the world seems so bad right now is that we are human beings and yet we’re being converted into economic batteries, and subconsciously we’re resisting the change. The exercise of power has become so contained and protected in elites that we cannot see it work without privilege – something which is not earned or even acquired, but divested. But here, tonight, we can see the exercise of power manifest in a different, more recognisable form. Here the people can see it work, can understand it intuitively if not academically. For power is on show tonight.

“The very first show that Joey and I ever did… after everything blew up,” Chris says, “was at this little farm market in North Carolina… We had 12,000 people show up and it was people that came from the other side of the country and we actually opened that show with ‘Richmond’… We played it as the first song and we played it as the last song and we haven’t done that since.” There is a cheer from the crowd. “But I don’t know, maybe tonight’s the night,” Chris says, and the crowd roars as he strums those familiar notes on his Resonator and the band launches into ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’.

The song itself hardly needs describing; everyone knows it, so imagine it sung word-perfect and as a great release by a crowd of more than a thousand. The band adds to the song rather than taking from it – Joey Davis’ acoustic guitar solo gets a roar – and Oliver Anthony moves away from the mike occasionally to give the singing crowd their head. It’s enough to wake the ghosts of Peterloo, the 1819 working man’s protest and subsequent rich men’s massacre having taken place a mere stone’s throw away from here at St. Peter’s Square.

Ours is the city where the working man was hit first by the impact of the Industrial Revolution; the battles fought so long ago and lost so comprehensively that many don’t remember that battles were even fought. Events like Peterloo were where the social contract was formed and, while regularly sullied, the principle remains that if you want prosperity off the sweat of another man’s brow, then you have to ensure that man is well cared for, or at least is open to opportunity. It is not a stolid, salt-of-the-earth endurance that gives the working man a nobility, but something greater, something like the building of things and the coming-together of individuals for a purpose. And it is that, among other things, which has found voice in a song. “I think we’re in for a fun night, boys,” Chris says as the crowd roars ‘Richmond’s end, and it’s a moment I feel privileged to have witnessed and been part of.

An energy still crackles through the crowd, and many begin singing “Oh, Oliver Anthony” like a football chant. Joey Davis picks up the White Stripes riff which underpins it on his guitar. “Joey picked up that sweet hat in Stockholm,” Chris says, referring to the camel-brown cowboy hat on the guitarist’s head. “Some guy threw it up on stage and we forgot to give it back.”

Chris reads a Bible verse from his phone – Ecclesiastes 4:1 – and one can almost feel the stones of this former chapel move to the sort of words it once heard regularly. There’s no awkwardness to the reading, no piousness or judgement, and the resonance of the words among the crowd proves that you don’t have to believe in divine righteousness to believe in righteousness. Chris follows it up with a plaintive rendition of ‘Cobwebs and Cocaine’. It’s simple but effective, and my earlier curiosity about whether people will remain engaged after ‘Richmond’ is sung seems foolish now.

Chris makes a paper plane out of a lyric sheet, and it flies into the crowd. It seems to be something of a ritual; after every song tonight, one of the three men on stage take a piece of paper from a stack and launch it into the crowd. The crowd throw things back, and not just their voices. A dark baseball cap now lands on stage. Caleb picks it up and hangs it on top of his stand-up bass, where it stays for the rest of the night.

The cap atop Caleb’s bass.

Introducing the next song, ‘Virginia’, Chris talks about having driven down from Scotland for tonight’s gig, and how its beautiful hills reminded him of home. Virginia, he says, is one of the few places on earth where you can legally walk around with both a joint and an AK47. He plays ‘Virginia’ as a higher-tempo number, with some peppy guitar-playing from Joey Davis.

The song’s line about smoking “something my daddy never growed back in his day” must inspire someone in the crowd, for a joint now lands on stage. Chris is amused, holding it up like a teacher would some contraband found in class. “It’s like Christmas morning up here,” he says of the barrage of dubious gifts, and some in the crowd chant for him to light up the doobie. Perhaps envisioning a morning-after of mainstream hit-pieces and revoked visas and cancelled tour-dates, he declines, exercising the diplomacy that has stood him in good stead since being admitted to the lion’s den back in August.

Instead, he sings ‘Always Love You (Like a Good Ole Dog)’, one of his tenderest songs. It has some fine picking from Joey Davis, and the night is so eventful the music itself can sometimes be overlooked. The band is steady on every song tonight: Joey has the greatest musical freedom of the trio, which allows him the occasional lusty solo, whereas Caleb, having already proven his guitar skills in his solo set, provides solid backing on the bass. Chris’ playing, on that signature Resonator, is reserved, and he’s in fine voice on each and all of the songs he sings tonight.

Another hat lands on stage – this time a white cowboy hat – and it joins the baseball cap atop Caleb’s bass. Joey is making the ritual paper plane this time around, his fingers taking their sweet time folding the wings. Chris notes the irony that they call him “Lightnin’ Fingers Joey Davis,”  before telling an anecdote of one of the many strange people they’ve met on tour. A 70-year-old woman was asked what she thought of this boy ‘Lightnin’ Fingers’, and she replied, “That’s just how I like ’em.” Chris chuckles. “70 years old,” he says.

Paper plane in flight, Chris breaks the news that he’s got a new album coming soon – “it’s all done, and will be out in about a month”, he says, to cheers. It’s an exciting prospect; Oliver Anthony is fulfilling expectations tonight, and the night is still young, so it’s interesting to consider how he can build on the unlikely success of ‘Richmond’ with a full album. This album, he says, “kicks everything’s ass”, reminding us that everything we’ve heard so far in his name has been recorded on a Samsung mobile.

The next song, he says, was written when he was “messed up, a bit stoned”, and says you can see he’s red-eyed in the YouTube video. ‘I’ve Got to Get Sober’ goes down a storm, though the sentiment is perhaps not shared by the increasingly rowdy crowd who’ve been drinking the bars dry on both sides of the hall. The song is signed off with another paper plane, the profligacy perhaps creating more jobs at the North Carolina paper mill where Chris used to work.

The white cowboy hat joins the cap atop Caleb’s bass.

Chris introduces the next song by sharing the first time he met his wife. He wrote ’90 Some Chevy’ because she was still living with her dad, and he would take her out in his old car. They’ve been together “about eight or nine years now” and have “three beautiful kids”, and it’s while he and the band play ’90 Some Chevy’, with some good solos from Joey, that I find myself thinking what a fine experience this Oliver Anthony phenomenon has been. It’s one thing to come ‘Out of the Woods’, as this tour has been dubbed, but quite another to come out of the woods in such triumph. It seems to me the richest man is not north of Richmond, but here tonight in Manchester, tomorrow in London, and more usually back in the woods in Virginia with his wife and kids and his good ole dogs. Such a life would be a blessing in itself, but Chris has become even more. He, speaking the truth, has been lauded for it, and loved. He has been making bank because of it and has people flock to hear him, and it proves a regular catharsis for those who do. It’s quite something to see, even at a distance.

Chris himself seems to be taking it in his stride. He foot-stomps along to the next chant of “Oh, Oliver Anthony” and tells the story of how Caleb became their bass player. Chris’ viral success was so sudden that, when they were planning to tour, they realised they had no bassist. Caleb said he’d figure it out and picked up the bass for the first time in his life. “About one month later, we played the Grand Ole Opry,” Chris says, marvelling at the absurdity of his life since August. As if to emphasise his determination to do things his own way, he reads another Bible verse from his phone: Ecclesiastes 5:15.

Oliver Anthony is, or deserves to be, more than a one-hit wonder, for now he begins a fine sequence of three of his best songs, showcasing his writing ability. ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ may be our generation’s ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime’, but ‘Ain’t Gotta Dollar’, with its line about how he “don’t need a dime”, shows that Chris’ outlook is more about being self-sufficient than supplicant. It goes down well with the audience, who sing along, as does a nicely muddy solo from Joey.

It’s followed by ‘Doggonit’, which is quickly becoming my favourite Oliver Anthony song. Many folk singers strive to incorporate the modern world into their traditional songwriting, but such topical allusions too often sound clunky and alien. Chris, however, appears to be able to do it seamlessly, to great effect in ‘Doggonit’. Topical lines about “people eatin’ bugs ’cause they won’t eat bacon” and “folks hardly surviving, on sidewalks next to highways full of cars self-driving” have a natural feel to them. The tragic absurdity of our modern world is evoked in this song, as is the singer’s weary lament, “doggonit”. But the song is also something more; as Caleb plucks a bass string, Chris sings that “there’s a little town somewhere…” It’s hard to describe, but the hopefulness and quiet aspiration this minor lyric evokes is something I look forward to every time I hear the song.

Another Bible verse follows in the lull between songs; this time it’s Matthew 24:6-14, a prophecy that “nation will rise against nation” and “the end will come”. It’s an appropriate introduction to the next song, one that’s full of foreboding. The crowd sings along to ‘I Want to Go Home’, but if Oliver Anthony has struck a chord of solidarity and common purpose in his whole body of songs, it is in this song that he shows why that is important. “We’re on the brink of the next world war,” he sings, and if any prospect requires people to band together and hear truth spoken, it is this.

It reminds me, if I may be permitted to say, of something I wrote in my novel Void Station One. This book describes the working man’s plight in a future of spaceflight, with the depressed protagonist intending to commit suicide by piloting his craft into a black hole. Something is coming, I write at one point in the book, and it may come soon. We don’t know what it might be or what form it will take, so we should learn as much as we can and gather what tools we can. Because you can feel something is coming. And if we don’t know what it is, or what we need to fight it, we can at least decide what we would want to preserve when it comes.

Looking at Oliver Anthony from the right. (Many look at him only from the left.)

Such a sentiment might well be considered conservatism: small-‘c’ conservatism, in its purest sense, and not remotely at odds with the “Fuck the Tories” chant which is now sung lustily by a section of the crowd in the Manchester Albert Hall. Little more than a year ago, I listened as Mike West sang ‘How to Build a Guillotine’ and Nick Shoulders sang ‘Won’t Fence Us In’, two catchy protest songs from the left-wing, and now, in ‘Richmond’, I have heard Oliver Anthony sing from what some have argued is the right – though it would be the centre, in a sane world. The expression is the same across all three songs, despite the different viewpoints: the defiance of the common man against all that is arrayed against him. This is especially important in our country, where Labour and the Tories are often just two cheeks of the same arse.

Most men just want a little dignity and to live their lives without needing to subscribe to any ideology – to become a rich man only in the sense of living peacefully with a wife and kids and dogs in the woods. It’s natural for the working man to resist radicalism, because it is the working man who, history shows, most often has to pay for the consequences of it. In history, these consequences are often extreme, but Chris now alludes to a more minor example. Tomorrow, he says, he’s heading down to London for another gig, and he plans to meet the ‘Blade Runners’. These are the people who are cutting down the ULEZ cameras – those undemocratic, punitive, dystopian shakedown-machines raised in service of a radical green initiative.

Less politically, Caleb launches a paper plane into the crowd. Unlike the others launched tonight, this one flies far into the body of people, earning Caleb a fist-bump from Chris.

After ‘I Want to Go Home’, it’s time for a change of tack. Chris launches into a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Simple Man’, and his vocals are perfect for an interpretation of these lyrics. The choice of cover is revealing, and I begin to recognise how many of Chris’ self-penned songs would fit Ronnie Van Zant like a glove.

But there’s a surprise in store; about halfway through the song, Joey Davis takes over the lead vocals. Roared on by the crowd, he sings with gusto and rides the wave through to the end of the song. After Joey’s vocal triumph, there is the fall; the ritual paper plane he makes falls short of the crowd entirely, crashing pathetically in the gap between the front row and the stage. “It’s got me wondering what dirt that plane had on the Clintons,” Chris quips.

The next song is ‘Between You & Me’, a lesser-known tune punctuated by a good solo from Joey, before Chris sends another paper plane out into the audience. It doesn’t go far. “Caleb is king,” Chris shrugs, referring to the cross-country flight chartered by the bass player a few songs earlier.

“This song is about outer space, I guess,” Chris says, introducing the next number. “But it always reminded me of coming home from my bullshit job… Anyways, I hope I don’t butcher it…” The crowd cheers in recognition as Chris sings the opening line of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’, and begins to sing along. The choice of song seems an odd one at first, but Chris sings it well and it suits the ground he has staked out: the melancholy working-man sent stratospheric.

Chris follows it up with a few more Bible verses: Luke 8:17 followed by Matthew 10:27-28. “History repeats itself, it’s the same shit,” Chris says, not (to my knowledge) quoting the Bible this time. “People tryin’ to control other people.”

It’s a simple message. In the six months since Oliver Anthony’s rise, some establishment commentators have scoffed that it’s an unsophisticated one, and some professional activists that it’s ideologically unsound, but to real people such a message is real. “I felt relief when this song took off,” Oliver Anthony says, the ordinary man looking completely at ease on this stage in front of this large crowd. There’s a lot of people out there who feel like this, he says, and when we think of those people who try to control other people, he asks us to remember that “we outnumber them”.

And with that, he strums his Resonator guitar and begins ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ again. Again there are roars, and again the crowd sings along to every word. It’s hard to explain the specialness of this, in a city that’s had its fair share of being beaten down over the centuries by rich men. But the catharsis is also shared by Oliver Anthony himself. Still clearly enthused by the reception the song gets, Chris stomps his foot on the stage as he sings.

It gets me thinking about another Bible verse; not any that Chris has read tonight, but the one from the Book of Job with which I opened this review: “When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” It’s remarkable that Oliver Anthony is even here tonight on this stage; not because of any lack of talent (he’s a talented songwriter and sings like the kiss of the howling wind), and not even because of his overnight viral success – an event without any real precedent. No, it’s remarkable because there is something that I don’t think many commentators have picked up on, despite Chris himself occasionally hinting at it: his thoughts of suicide in the depths of depression before he decided, instead, to summon the will for one last effort at life. This was an effort that succeeded for him in a fantastic way, when many just like him fail and fall away, and his voice contains not just his own pain but the pain of those who were left unheard. Having been tested, he has come forth as gold, speaking truth on the frequency of the forgotten men and quoting Bible verses when the man himself could have easily been relegated to apocrypha.

As the song ends, Chris raises his fist and takes in the long applause of the audience. He bows, but soon after there is a brief murmur of outrage from the crowd as someone throws a pint of bitter at the stage. It’s the only bitter moment in a night of phenomenal goodwill, and a small reminder that there’s always one who has the capacity to spoil anything special that builds. But the crowd is unwilling to let it be anything more than a short, sour moment; the “Oh, Oliver Anthony” chants begin again and Chris takes to the mike.

“Don’t you ever forget,” he says, over the roar. “No matter how they make it look on your cellphone and your television… don’t ever forget – if this isn’t proof enough, this reaction to this, everywhere in all these countries, all these different people who don’t know each other… if we haven’t found common ground in anything else, just remember that there will always be more of us than there are of them.”

Cheers and stomps and chants again, but Oliver Anthony’s still not done. For his final song, he debuts a song from his upcoming album. ‘Mama’s Been Hurtin” continues his honourable theme of the effect of economic depression on working families. Lyrics like “a week’s worth of groceries is the price of gold” suggest he’s no flash-in-the-pan with ‘Richmond’.

“It’s been an honour and a privilege and a pleasure to be here tonight,” Chris says. “I’m gonna let Joey play a few and go along the front and sign some shit.” As he leaves the stage, Joey Davis, in his Stockholm hat, continues strumming his guitar and begins the Amy Winehouse song ‘Valerie’. “Well, my body’s been a mess, and I’ve missed your ginger hair,” he sings, but the one ginger no one wants to miss is the big-bearded Chris now moving along the front line of the thronging crowd, taking selfies and signing merchandise.

Joey will go on to complete a fine set of six songs himself, including covers of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rhiannon’ and Bill Withers’ ‘Just the Two of Us’. As he finishes, I head down from the mezzanine to the main floor. Oliver Anthony is still signing things, and I note with a wry smile that he’s stood beside the same spot on the rail that I vacated earlier. I consider joining the throng to meet him, but decide against it. While it may come as a surprise to those who have made it to the end of this long and indulgent review, I can’t think of anything to say at that moment.

Instead, I head outside into the Manchester rain and walk down the street past the Sir Ralph Abercromby pub. A sign outside the inn tells us that this building is the last-remaining witness to the Peterloo Massacre. Just a few years ago, it was again threatened by the rich men, who see the city as a portfolio rather than a place for people to live. History repeats itself, it’s the same shit. People trying to control other people.

Setlist:

(all songs are 2022/23 singles and written by Chris Lunsford – a.k.a. Oliver Anthony – unless noted)

  1. Rich Men North of Richmond
  2. Cobwebs and Cocaine
  3. Virginia
  4. Always Love You (Like a Good Ole Dog)
  5. I’ve Got to Get Sober
  6. 90 Some Chevy
  7. Ain’t Gotta Dollar
  8. Doggonit
  9. I Want to Go Home
  10. Simple Man (Gary Rossington/Ronnie Van Zant) (unreleased)
  11. Between You & Me
  12. Rocket Man (Elton John/Bernie Taupin) (unreleased)
  13. Rich Men North of Richmond (reprise)
  14. Mama’s Been Hurtin’ (unreleased)

The novel mentioned in this review, Void Station One, can be found here.

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