Mike Futcher

Writer

Tag: concert review

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.

On the Strings of Strings: Billy Strings Live in Manchester

November 22, 2023 /

Friday 17th November 2023

Manchester Academy, Manchester, England

“And rest yourself ‘neath the strength of strings,

No voice can hope to hum.”

Bob Dylan, ‘Lay Down Your Weary Tune’

When I attended my first gig in this new country scene – or, more accurately, a broad ‘roots’ scene – I was in two minds whether to put down my thoughts on it for this blog, which I had intended for other things closer related to my own fiction. When I decided to write about the gig, which coincidentally was for one-time Billy Strings collaborator Sierra Ferrell (‘Bells of Every Chapel’), I began with the caveat that it’s hard to write about music because it is an elemental thing. Writing about music, I wrote, often ends up destroying the magic in it, turning the experience of sung gold into mute and lumpen lead.

Since then, I have managed to avoid this reverse-alchemy by closely adhering to a formula in my concert reviews. But the nature of a Billy Strings set makes this more difficult to do. There is no opening act; instead, Billy and his band perform two full sets with an intermission. More importantly, one must account for the flavour of Billy’s jams, where a three-minute album song might be extended to eight or nine minutes, and songs can roll into one another without pause, sometimes punctuated by left-field teases from other songs that don’t qualify for mention on a setlist.

I could write of how I entered the building, how once inside I waited an hour in the snaking queue for merchandise, reaching the front just as Billy took the stage and launched into ‘Dust in a Baggie’, or of how I gradually made my way to the front, following the lead of my friend. I could write of the musicians and their virtuosity, and of the eclectic nature of the crowd; the guitar-pickers and acid-droppers, the young, the old, the freaks and geeks, the deadheads and the rail-riders, the sketchy and the well-drawn, the seasoned Billy apostles and the first-timers. The oldest person in the crowd might well be in his seventies; the youngest I see must be seven.

I’ll try to give a good accounting of it. But there’s a consistency on the stage throughout the night, in how Billy and his band approach the songs, that makes the ebb and flow hard to describe. And yet alongside the consistency there’s a vibrant flexibility, the bluegrass jamming that a hardcore tonight have specifically come to see. But if my lumpen lead of words could describe, to the uninitiated, the magical appeal of Billy Strings’ music tonight, it would not be in lyrical descriptions or praise, but simply as follows: Imagine those four minutes of wild abandon at the end of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Free Bird’, but sustained for three hours. And with banjo.

There are many who have already cottoned on to this fact, and Billy Strings is probably the biggest name on the scene. His mix of musical virtuosity, strong songwriting and down-to-earth persona has made him a veritable rock star, and his ever-changing jam setlists a moveable feast. Combined with a psychedelic infusion that has also attracted a few less desirable types to his banner, it means the queue to the Manchester Academy, the venue on this Friday night, reaches well along Oxford Road and into the university campus.

The Academy hall can take thousands, and it appears all of them have decided to join the queue for the venue’s merchandise stall. It wraps around the soundboard enclosure in the centre of the room and doesn’t seem to move. By the time the queue moves me to the final corner, the home stretch, I realise why it’s taking so long. Large numbers of people entering the venue are ignoring the queue and barging right to the front to make their purchases; it’s only at this point that I’m able to notice it. Security staff eventually intervene, but the damage is done and it’s the first of a few examples of fan behaviour tonight which are the only thing that threaten to tarnish the Billy Strings experience.

The stage announcement comes on for “fifteen minutes”, then “ten minutes” then “five”, and from this queue at the rear of the Academy hall the expensive merchandise is, tantalisingly, almost in reach. Perhaps, with a cooler head, I could have resisted some of its prices, but it’s at this point that, at the other end of the room, Billy Strings comes on stage with his band. The vendor’s card-reader provides a total that could kick a calculator in the arse, and the madman on the stage launches into the fan-favourite ‘Dust in a Baggie’ for his first song. I never stood a chance, and pay without a second thought.

It’s a long version of ‘Dust’, about eight minutes long, with Billy and the band starting as they mean to go on. Charming bluegrass harmonies from Billy Failing on banjo and Royal Masat on stand-up bass precede a mandolin solo from Jarrod Walker, before further solos from Billy on his acoustic guitar and Alex Hargreaves on fiddle. Billy’s guitar ends up duelling playfully with Alex’s fiddle, before the song moves seamlessly into the next one.

As the bluegrass harmonies of ‘Love Me Darlin’, Just Tonight’ begin, I have, at my friend’s goading, moved my way to the front of the crowd, left-of-centre. I usually hang back during concerts, but her instinct is correct and this ground at the front is an area we’ll occupy for the rest of the night, and largely a pleasant one. At one point later tonight, a burly, aggressive tweaker will barge through and plant himself directly in front of me, his back a mere six inches from my face. Perhaps I should not be offended, as six inches is no doubt seen as a great length to a man like him, though perhaps not to his girlfriend who joins him. He will soon move on, however, and most of the animated behaviour that arouses such comment in the fanbase thankfully (for me, at least) happens elsewhere, the centre and right-of-centre.

Here, on the centre-left, I have a good vantage point for the rest of the night. ‘Show Me the Door’ is next, and while the tender song is played straighter than many others tonight, it still finds space for fiddle, mandolin and acoustic guitar solos, before a long, wailing electric solo from Billy’s guitar. It’s a surreal sight; the guitar is an acoustic that is heavily modded with a pedalboard and other technical doohickeys I won’t even pretend to understand. It means that Billy can switch seamlessly between traditional bluegrass acoustic and a crisp, electric Van Halen-type sound from one note to the next. While his guitar gently weeps, Billy’s band keep the beat. The electro-acoustic hybrid may be an odd sight, but it’s not an odd sound by any means. Harmonies from Alex Hargreaves and Billy Failing on the chorus bring the song home.

After its follow-up, the mighty ‘Bronzeback’, Billy mentions how “fucking awesome” Manchester is and how he always looks forward to it on tour. It’s the sort of thing artists say on stage, but it’s easy to believe him. From the front, it’s hard to gauge how many people are here tonight (and I’m bad at it anyway – I’ve never once won a jar of jelly beans), but the hall can take in thousands and it seems like that number tonight. The crowd is receptive to everything Billy does, and is vibing from the first moment to the last. There is a regular and disappointing backdraft of chatter from the rear of the venue, but I accept there are people so built that a plastic cup of beer compromises their already dubious sense of propriety. It’s Friday night and nothing can detract from the sound that Billy and the boys are concocting on stage.

It’s a concoction about to throw forth some of its most potent effects, as the band launch into a series of freewheelin’ covers. ‘Rock of Ages’ is followed by a version of ‘My Love Come Rolling Down’ that lasts maybe ten to fifteen minutes and rolls into a ‘Thunder’ punctuated by lightning from Billy’s electric-infused guitar.

Somehow, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet, and it’s in the following original, the Renewal album’s ‘Heartbeat of America’, that we’re provided a jam moment for the ages. While singing the song’s opening lines, Billy’s tongue gets twisted. It’s a noticeable flub and threatens to derail the song, and the next few lines follow suit. Billy’s response is inspired: the final line of the verse is replaced by a long “Fuuuuck!”, so perfectly placed you could be forgiven for preferring it over the intended line. It draws a laugh from the crowd and grins from the band, its incorporation into the song allowing the music to get back on track. (Fortunately, someone has captured the moment for posterity.)

Introducing his next song, Billy mentions Willie Nelson, which draws a great roar from the crowd. The band launch right into ‘California Sober’, one of my favourite songs, with Royal Masat on bass given the honour of providing Willie’s harmonies. After a flurry of solos, Billy and the band leave the stage, with the crowd buzzing.

* * * * *

It’s been a prodigious set of music, and a normal band, supported by an opening act, would have felt they’d done enough to call it a night. Billy Strings, however, is only just getting started. After fifteen minutes or so, he returns with his band for a second set even longer – and more powerful – than the first. Starting again as he means to go on, Billy schools the Manchester Academy in ‘Big Sandy River’, leading into ‘A Letter to Seymour’. He then woos the crowd with two excellent originals, ‘Long Forgotten Dream’ and ‘Hellbender’.

This is followed with one of Billy’s most beautiful originals, ‘Enough to Leave’. He’s giving us diamonds, he’s giving us rings and pearls, and the acoustic solo in this song is a release like few in music. It’s followed by a fantastic version of ‘Everything’s the Same’, the title an irony given the moveable feast of Billy’s setlists. The latter song allows Royal Masat a chance to shine, his prominent bass solo delivered with aplomb.

“I don’t know if this song’s out there,” Billy says when introducing the next song. By ‘out there’, he means on a record, not as a psychedelic vibe. He says ‘Letter Edged in Black’ was recorded for Me and Dad, his latest traditional bluegrass album, and “we learned it from Mac Wiseman”. It’s the most conventional playing of the night, which is probably a disappointment to some of the bad-trippers and chatterers in the crowd, but it’s a moment of simple clarity in a night otherwise made wild by musical potions. Alex Hargreaves provides a fiddle solo straight out of the hills.

Billy Failing, succeeding.

It’s as though Billy has been clearing the decks for the finest passage of music of the night. From the traditional we move into the space age, with Billy and the band taking off into a long, swirling, expansive version of ‘Hide and Seek’, a mix of traditional bluegrass and looping cosmic streams, as though the rivers of Kentucky were lifted up by the fingers of some hidden god and woven into an ouroboros. Billy launches into a particularly fine solo and stalks towards the front of the stage. The audience is bubbling, approaching fever pitch, and Billy’s toes edge over the corner of the stage as the music builds. It builds and builds and then it breaks, magnificently, with Billy retreating to a safe distance as the crowd erupts in frenzy. The centre of the crowd is now like sharks thrashing around blood in the water, and even heads that have so far resisted the strings of Strings now find themselves jerking back and forth with abandon.

It’s a pure and indescribable moment, a ‘how-to-dig-a-bluegrass-mosh-pit’ executed perfectly by Billy and the band, but it’s not over. The song morphs cathartically into a cover of the Lennon/McCartney song ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’, with Jarrod and Billy Failing providing ringing bluegrass harmonies in place of those the Beatles once sang. It’s propelled throughout by Royal’s bass, and as a Beatles fan it’s a special moment for me. It’s still not over though, because after a couple of minutes the song morphs back again into ‘Hide and Seek’ and the musical frenzy is extended for a few minutes more.

Perhaps knowing the moment can’t be beat, Billy Strings closes his own songbook for the night and relies on bluegrass classics to carry us home. ‘Old Man at the Mill’ and ‘Clinch Mountain Backstep’ follow, the former characterised by Billy’s exuberant dancing to match his guitar-playing.

But it’s the final song of the set which shows the night in microcosm. ‘Freeborn Man’ starts with Billy playing a distinctive riff alone, before he begins singing and the band comes in. As the groove is quickly found, Billy Failing performs an excellent solo on his banjo, before the torch is passed to Alex on fiddle after the next sung verse. After Alex’s solo, Billy Strings performs an acoustic guitar solo himself – “here in Manchester!” he shouts – and passes over to Jarrod for a mandolin solo. Jarrod passes back to Billy, whose solo quickly gets picked up by Billy Failing’s banjo and then Alex’s fiddle. The mandolin picks up where the fiddle left off, then Billy’s guitar and then the banjo and then the fiddle, before all the instruments combine to build and swarm, and then the release of the final verse. The song ends with a roar from the crowd, and Billy and the band leave the stage.

They return, of course – how could they not, after such a reception? – but after the encore of ‘I’ve Lived a Lot in My Time’, Billy still isn’t done. As the lights go up and the crowd begins to filter out, Billy jumps down from the stage and begins signing merchandise for those fans who make their way to the front rail. He holds conversations, takes selfies, listens to stories. I’ve never seen an artist on this level of fandom engage so sincerely with a concert audience, and be so generous with his time. After a three-hour dual set, he probably spends another half-hour here interacting with fans. It’s good to see such positivity among those on the rail, particularly as some fan behaviour on the tour has apparently been so inappropriate that Billy was moved to address it on social media.

Now, policing concert etiquette is a fool’s game, and I’m not sufficiently involved in the fanbase to comment on it, let alone opine on whatever rulebooks are thrown out on the jam scene. Much online discussion focuses on the aggression of the rail-riders, but while poor behaviour has been noticeable tonight, it hasn’t been widespread enough to leave a bitter taste. Some have blamed American deadheads who have followed Billy from city to city, and country to country, on this European tour, but the only Americans I meet tonight are a gracious couple from Illinois, who hang back in the crowd, and seem like a good hang.

Rather, the fan behaviour that deserves to be amplified tonight comes now, at the end of the show, as Billy reaches the end of the rail where I stand and stops to speak to my friend. He doesn’t seem remotely tired by his exertions on stage tonight. He makes eye contact; he’s locked in as she speaks. It’s not my place to relate the story she tells him, suffice to say that she tells him how much his song ‘Secrets’, which he hasn’t played tonight, helped her through a tough moment in her life. The story ends with a long hug from Billy. These are the fans who represent Billy the best. But as we leave the venue and walk into the rain of the Manchester night, I find myself thinking, not only because of the strength of his strings but his generosity and personality, the one who best represents Billy is Billy himself.

Setlist:

(no opening act; two full Billy sets with intermission after ‘California Sober’)

  1. Dust in a Baggie (William Apostol) (from Billy Strings EP)
  2. Love Me Darlin’, Just Tonight (Red Malone/Carter Stanley) (unreleased)
  3. Show Me the Door (Jarrod Walker/Christian Ward) (from Renewal)
  4. Bronzeback (Apostol) (unreleased)
  5. I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages (John Preston) (from Rock of Ages)
  6. She Makes My Love Come Rolling Down (Eric Von Schmidt) (unreleased)
  7. Thunder (Robert Hunter) (unreleased)
  8. Heartbeat of America (Apostol/Aaron Allen) (from Renewal)
  9. California Sober (Apostol/Allen/Jon Weisberger) (single) [End of Set #1]
  10. Big Sandy River (Tommy Jackson) (unreleased)
  11. A Letter to Seymour (Dave Bruzza) (unreleased)
  12. Long Forgotten Dream (Apostol) (from Home)
  13. Hellbender (Apostol/Allen/Weisberger) (from Renewal)
  14. Enough to Leave (Apostol) (from Home)
  15. Everything’s the Same (Apostol/Walker) (from Home)
  16. Letter Edged in Black (Hattie Nevada) (unreleased)
  17. Hide and Seek (Apostol/Walker/Billy Failing/Royal Masat) (from Renewal)
  18. And Your Bird Can Sing (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) (unreleased)
  19. Hide and Seek (reprise)
  20. The Old Man at the Mill (Clarence Ashley) (unreleased)
  21. Clinch Mountain Backstep (Stanley) (unreleased)
  22. Freeborn Man (Keith Allison/Mark Lindsay) (unreleased)
  23. Encore: I’ve Lived a Lot in My Time (Jim Reeves/Dick Reynolds/Jack Rhodes) (unreleased)

Note: An official stream of tonight’s show is available on Nugs.net here.

Rapture at St. Lawrence’s: Kassi Valazza Live

October 29, 2023 /

Tuesday 24th October 2023

St. Lawrence’s Church, Biddulph, England

I advance up the south stone path in the dark of the autumn evening. I slow my pace to avoid passing an older couple on the cobbles just ahead, and enter the welcoming light of the church. But no, I am not, reader, finally seeking forgiveness for all my sins. Tonight, St. Lawrence’s Church, in the Staffordshire town of Biddulph, is host to a more secular spirit. Kassi Valazza has come from America to tour her harmonious brand of psychedelic folk and country, and tonight her melodies will grace this parish church.

I sit silently in the nave, among the gathering congregation, and take in the scene. The old stone church is grand and yet intimate, perfect for tonight’s music, and I wonder at how buildings like this are common across England, built in better days when art and architecture was exalted, and too often fallen into disrepair in our own times. Coats-of-arms adorn the walls and, through the grey arches which line the nave, stone plaques are mounted in the bays. I look up and see dark brown beams lattice the ceiling, set off by the stark white paint of the roof itself. Behind the area at the front of the church, where a stage has already been cleared and musical instruments set up, there is an oak lectern and a stone altar. Beyond this red-carpeted chancel area where tonight’s trinity of musicians will later play, the apse funnels light up towards the heavens, past carved stone angels and stained-glass windows which Cromwell’s men once tried to destroy. Kassi may have come from America, a land where country music thrives and St. Lawrence is a great river, but this modest English church has existed since America was young, and on a site where a church has existed in one form or another for a thousand years.

Tonight is a night for fine female vocalists, and not long after ‘In Dreams’ by Sierra Ferrell (who I saw live last year) fades from the speakers, our opening act, the appropriately-named St. Catherine’s Child, stands before the microphone. The stage name of singer-songwriter Ilana Zsigmond, St. Catherine’s Child is the first artist tonight to recognise and be energised by their unique venue.

Dressed in a cream wool sweater and with a blood-red scarf in her hair, Ilana stands behind her acoustic guitar and sings gently of how “all the ruins here are foreign now to me”. ‘I Know Nothing’ is the first of many songs tonight whose lyrics seem tailor-made for the venue. While St. Lawrence’s Church is no ruin, it’s fair to say such places are not the centre of communities they once were. But their lingering spirit is revived on nights like this, as though the stones remember how they once sang.

After her second song, the uplifting ‘Burden’, Ilana looks puzzled as she reads a note held up by Nick Barber, the promoter (who also takes some excellent photographs tonight). The puzzlement turns to glee as, in her best “flight attendant” voice, she asks that “the owner of the Ford Focus with registration plate… please move your vehicle”.

“I’ve always wanted to do that!” she says gleefully, before breaking into ‘Connecticut River’, her songs proving to be as well-constructed as the stone which they now reverberate from. ‘Every Generation’ will prove to be another highlight, but it is her closing number, an unreleased song about the river flooding in York, which charms the most. I’m a sucker for lyrics that evoke history, and this song’s references to Romans and Vikings hit the spot.

Ilana rolls her eyes and smiles as she sings a line about having “no control”, as she had previously had to stop the song due to losing control of her soaring voice. St. Catherine’s Child is a bubbly presence all night, both on stage and at the merchandise table, and she tells us how she chose her stage name. She studied medieval art and architecture at university, and wrote her dissertation on Saint Catherine. Naturally, she is delighted to have sung at tonight’s venue, and tells us how she was handed a pamphlet on its history. I wonder if this pamphlet informs Ilana of one of the inscriptions on the church bells: My gentle voice shall lead the cheerful sound. It could serve as a fine summary of her own performance.

After a short interval, Kassi Valazza takes to the stage, to applause. She has removed the brown corduroy jacket in which she could be seen earlier tonight, as though she were wandering around Haight-Ashbury, and takes a seat behind her acoustic guitar at centre-stage. She wears a red sweater with unicorns on it, hiding a paisley shirt, and has the bluest bell-bottoms I’ve ever seen. To her left, the long-haired Tobias Berblinger takes a seat behind his electric keys, side-on to the audience like the profile of a Roman coin. His board is garlanded with flowers and a patterned white-and-red blanket. To Kassi’s right, Lewi Longmire reclines behind his electric guitar, his brown cowboy hat tipped forward. He will also provide harmonica and harmonies tonight.

The music builds, with Kassi’s acoustic strumming almost mantra-like as her companions’ refined touches begin to put together the expansive Canyon folk-rock sound which will keep us rapt for the rest of the night. “Birds fly high,” Kassi sings in a rich and melodious voice, her long blonde wavy hair falling over her face as she strums. “They’re black tails on white sails. Why do I think of you, when I’m blue, when I’m blue?” The band have begun as they mean to go on, with a gloriously mellow sound that recalls the best of the psychedelic California music of the Sixties. In the church setting, it doesn’t feel transgressive, but rather a continuation of that search for inner peace which first led to this place being built.

“That’s a bright light,” Kassi says in a slightly spaced-out voice after the song is over, looking up into the white spotlight which shines directly on her. “That’s what you see in church,” quips Lewi. But while their eyes are drawn to this light, which is tethered to one of the stone columns behind me, mine is drawn to the light behind them in the apse. This is now a pinkish-purple hue, funnelling upwards directly behind Kassi, with the rest of the room in shadow. A wooden crucifix stands tall on the altar over her right shoulder. The composition could almost be a religious painting; the three musicians on stage posing for a triptych or altarpiece.

Lewi begins the harmonica bursts that announce ‘Room in the City’, the instrument strapped to him in one of those Dylan-like neck contraptions. He adds further light touches on his guitar as Kassi weaves the lyrics together into a fine song. As the church bells toll quietly for nine o’clock, Kassi tells the congregation the story behind her next song. “You don’t know how fire works,” her friend would tell her after setting newspaper alight, and Kassi says this utterance of her “psychopathic” friend proved a nice juxtaposition to her own anxiousness.

But if there is any anxiety in Kassi, it has been banished from this place. As she sings and picks her way through ‘Rapture’, the folk song which houses this pyromania-inspired lyric, I find my eyes wandering upwards. It won’t be the first time tonight. My attention isn’t wandering – quite the contrary. Something about the scene tonight is so quietly perfect that I feel I must expand my frame to catch a glimpse of what is at work. The colours and hues painting the stone with light; the clarity of Kassi’s guitar strings as it picks the chord progression of the aptly-named ‘Rapture’; her voice as it fills this room – a room purpose-built for the highest ideals… I’ve been fortunate to attend some excellent gigs in the last year and more, but none with the uniquely restful quality tonight has provided.

Kassi follows up ‘Rapture’ with ‘Johnny Dear’, the first song of hers I ever heard and the first tonight which demonstrates her country influence. It’s a compassionate song and one which complements tonight’s vibe, but Tobias’ keys soon rekindle the psychedelic folk-rock vibe in the next song, ‘Watching Planes Go By’. “Michael blames his broken foot on lost time,” Kassi sings. A number of artists nowadays reach for that Sixties sound, but none sound as authentic as Kassi. She has an uncanny knack of delivering these lyrics, these hooks, in that startlingly clear voice, and even when the songs are new (there are five unreleased songs in tonight’s set-list, including four originals) they feel like you’ve known them before, like they’re some lost, overlooked gem from the hippie era that you heard, maybe once, on the radio decades ago. The warmth this generates as you hear them is difficult to describe. It’s akin to that sense of discovery some listeners feel within the confines of a jazz song.

Kassi evokes this feeling again and again tonight, next in ‘Long Way from Home’ – with some good slide guitar from Lewi and another uncannily appropriate lyric about “echoing church bells” – and a cover of the Michael Hurley song ‘Light Green Fellow’. “Some bright light came tumbling through,” Kassi sings next, on the beautiful and expansive ‘Chino’, altering this opening lyric to provide yet another appropriate harmony with St. Lawrence’s. In this venue, Kassi’s psychedelic folk has become almost transcendental, and ‘Chino’ ends with some playing from Tobias which recalls the majesty of a church organ. “Holy prophets, with empty pockets,” Kassi sings in the follow-up, ‘Song for a Season’.

For the next song Kassi plays alone, but even without the instruments of her two companions, she maintains the spell of the music. “Still my love grows, still my love grows,” she sings while picking on her acoustic guitar. “Higher and higher watch it grow, higher and higher out the door.” In fact, it is only when I crane my neck that I realise Lewi and Tobias are not playing. “Now I sit here all alone, keeping control”, Kassi sings.

It’s the third unreleased song of the night, though so natural is the songwriting that it is only later that I can confirm to myself that I’ve never heard any of them before. It’s quickly followed by a fourth, which Kassi says is a new song from an album they’ve recently recorded. Tonight, she is quietly showcasing her songwriting talent – only the Michael Hurley song we heard earlier is not penned by her – and as she sits and sings this latest one – with Tobias and Lewi joining her again – I find myself wondering when I will next be able to hear it. After all, it’s only been five months since the release of her last album. “Roll on, roll on, my dearest soul blue,” Kassi sings for her latest gentle hook, and I begin to recognise what it is about the night that feels so different to other gigs. Between the excellent acoustics of the church hall, and the crisp playing of three musicians who have stayed seated throughout the night, it feels less like a live performance and more like we have been invited to sit in on a special recording session.

As though in recognition of where I now realise I am, Kassi begins her ‘Welcome Song’. “I’ll build you up, I’ll build you down,” she sings, sounding like Grace Slick and yet better, crisper. “The circle always spinning.”  It’s followed up with the fantastic non-album single ‘Early Morning Rising’; two songs that suggest a beginning and yet, in keeping with that cosmic circle, arriving now towards the end of the night. You can almost feel the sun and the loamy earth in the latter song, and the acoustic chords during its emphatic wordless chorus reverberate from the stone.

“It’s easier to say than practice what I know,” Kassi sings in her final song, another tantalisingly unreleased display of lyricism. “It’s the weight of the wheel, or so I’m told.”  When it’s over, the trio of musicians exit through what’s known as the “devil’s door”, a stout wooden arched door traditionally for heathens and other godless personages (“where they put the band,” Kassi had said earlier in the night, with furrowed brow and mock suspicion). But the three have not been unwelcome in this sanctum tonight, and the audience shouts for an encore.

The three enter again to applause, and resume their seats. “Turn your hymn books to page 47,” Lewi quips, to laughter. Kassi says Lewi has never been in church before, before leading her companions into a tender version of her encore song, ‘Verde River’. Rather than the honky-tonkin’ of the album version, Kassi’s version tonight is slower and more melodious, recapturing the spirit which has pervaded each of tonight’s songs. For one final time, I sit back and absorb the harmonic interstices of the night; the restful moments that seem to breathe between Kassi’s crystal voice and her crisp acoustic strumming, between the tasteful, punctuating notes of Lewi’s electric guitar and Tobias’ echoing ambient soundscapes, and between the pinkish light which pools on the walls behind Kassi Valazza and funnels up towards the top of the apse. As this final song ends, I find myself thinking that if rapture is ever called from on high, it won’t be called in blood and fire or as some awful noise, but gently and serenely, and by chords like these.

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. Long Way from Home (I’ll Ride You Down)
  7. Light Green Fellow (Michael Hurley) (unreleased)
  8. Chino (from Dear Dead Days)
  9. Song for a Season
  10. From Newman St. (Higher and Higher)* (unreleased)
  11. Roll On* (unreleased)
  12. Welcome Song
  13. Early Morning Rising (single)
  14. Weight of the Wheel* (unreleased)
  15. Encore: Verde River (from Dear Dead Days)

* track titles unconfirmed

Hurricane Charley Hits the Northern Quarter: Charley Crockett Live with the Blue Drifters

September 10, 2023 /

Monday 4th September 2023

Band on the Wall, Manchester, England

Indulge, if you will, a brief discussion of meteorology. As I make my way to the Band on the Wall in the Northern Quarter of Manchester, I see the people of this city sweltering in the midst of our unseasonable heatwave. The last time Charley Crockett played Manchester it was a cold autumn and it rained on the roof of the Deaf Institute, but now, just shy of a year later, I think we would welcome such a break of cool and pleasant rain. Brewing in the tropics during the Atlantic hurricane season, Hurricane Franklin has pushed high pressure and warm air north towards England and the result is that, on this Monday evening in early September, the rainy city of the North is a humid 27ºC. But what different storm, I wonder, had brewed in the Gulf of Texas that called for Charley Crockett and his white-hot Blue Drifters to melt the walls of this English venue tonight?

By now, everyone who keeps a weather-eye open for such things knows that Charley Crockett can’t be stopped. He tours relentlessly and releases albums at a prodigious rate – and it’s not second-rate material either. His set-list tonight is notably refreshed from the last time I saw him, and albums that were under-represented last October now feature heavily – particularly 2016’s soulful In the Night, which is also prominently displayed on the merchandise table on the mezzanine level of the Band on the Wall venue. (It is here that I am drawn to purchasing the stylish art-deco concert poster, a limited edition for tonight’s show.)

Such is the wealth and breadth of quality material that Crockett is able to draw on, there’s a high chance that you won’t hear your favourite song tonight, even though Hurricane Charley will soon unload more than thirty onto the five hundred of us streaming into the close heat of the Band on the Wall. Of these thirty, there’ll be a few unreleased originals, proof that while Crockett’s latest album releases might be the remix of last year’s The Man from Waco and the upcoming Live from the Ryman – a unseasonably long time (for him) not to release a full album of new material – the well has certainly not run dry. And one certainly can’t complain when Charley Crockett live is an experience in itself. You’ve not heard ‘Trinity River’ until you’ve heard it flow through a crowd twenty songs into a blistering set.

It is appropriate that Hurricane Charley, which made landfall at the End of the Road Festival a day earlier, begins, like every storm, with electrical interference. Just before the show begins and without warning, a deep bass shockwave pulses through the crowd and hollows out our ears. It sounds like a speaker has blown, though I can’t say for sure. Nor, it seems, can the roadies who now gather round the soundsystem on the stage, because the problem returns during the band’s opening number.

As Charley leads his band the Blue Drifters through ‘Run Horse Run’, the emphatic note that ends the first verse leads to another static boom from the rogue amp. The roadies huddle again as Charley and his drummer Mayo Valdez exchange glances. Whatever the roadies do seems to work, for when Charley reaches the end of the next verse and tenses in anticipation of another boom, there’s no disruption. And there won’t be again: from here on out, the amp contents itself with emitting only the good and soulful sounds of the Blue Drifters.

Announced by Kullen Fox’s trumpet and running with a steady thumping beat, ‘Run Horse Run’ is a fast number that has already whipped up the crowd, despite the technical difficulties. Charley follows it quickly with a pacy rendition of ‘5 More Miles’. It’s Charley’s style to play a lot of songs and not talk too much between them, punctuating the music with lots of dancing and showmanship. Having heard Charley live before, I came forewarned and forearmed, and sure enough ‘Cowboy Candy’ and ‘Jukebox Charley’ follow ‘5 More Miles’ with barely a pause for breath. Once you get used to this approach it’s easy to appreciate, particularly as it provides a lot of momentum to a night of music.

The band light into the funky grooves of ‘Just Like Honey’, which, if tonight’s impromptu singalong is any indication, has quickly become a fan favourite since its release last year. Mass cheers follow during and after ‘Music City USA’, Charley Crockett’s spit-in-the-eye to the music industry establishment which tried to control him. As tonight’s heaving venue suggests – “we sold the joint out,” Charley will announce later in the show – making his way as an independent artist is going just fine.

Crockett and his band then unleash a one-two-three combo of James Hand cover songs to really light a match under the night. ‘Midnight Run’, ‘Lesson in Depression’ and ‘Don’t Tell Me That’ are delivered with a throwback 50s rock-‘n’-roll energy that makes you wonder why more acts can’t conjure up the sparks of this forgotten magic. Nostalgia aside, there’s something special about the old days, and it’s something Charley Crockett has been able to revive and harness in his own music.

Charley’s not been the first artist to recognise this tonight, however. Before the Blue Drifters took the stage, opening act Ags Connolly had turned his keen songwriter’s eye to the potent energy of forgotten days with his song ‘I Saw James Hand’, about seeing Slim play “in London first time”. Standing behind his acoustic guitar, the large, bearded Ags has delivered a strong set of original classic country tunes, including ‘Headed South for a While’ from his new album Siempre. ‘Get Out of My Mind’ is another highlight from his opening set, as is the catchy ‘I Hope You’re Unhappy’, which Ags jokingly describes as his “big feelgood song”.

Picking his guitar between songs, Connolly regales the crowd with a story of the last time he played in Manchester, at the Night and Day Café just a few streets away. “The World Cup semi-final was on, and we couldn’t go on until it ended,” he says, before adding, with a hard-won bathos, “it went to extra-time, and we lost, so everyone went home.” Such is the lot of the honest musician – or any artist, for that matter – trying to make their mark in an indifferent world. Sometimes I wonder if I just like hitching myself to lost causes and broken-legged underdogs – country music being a hard sell even in America outside its home states, and “British country music” sounding like a contradiction in terms – but the sincere music of the likes of Ags Connolly gives the lie to this. There’s talent if people turn their ears to listen.

But as the Blue Drifters turn up the heat in front of a capacity crowd in heatwave-struck Manchester, such concerns are far from my mind. By the end of the night, listening to Charley Crockett will feel like hitching myself not to a lost cause but to a runaway train. Charley pulls another ace from his sleeve by launching into ‘Ten Dollar Cowboy’, a fine song that, in the best possible sense, sounds like a song you’ve heard before. But you haven’t – it’s just a song that settles like that – for despite his two-albums-a-year rate, Charley hasn’t yet released this one. Given his stamina, and the song’s quality, you know it won’t be long until he does.

It’s followed by ‘Black Sedan’, a song that creeps up on you in how good it is, and ‘The Man from Waco’, two one-year-old songs that have already achieved the status of crowd favourites. The loudest roar yet accompanies Kullen Fox’s trumpet solo in the latter song, two blue spotlights fixing on him for this heart-lifting sequence of mariachi horn notes that seem to have come right out of the finest Western film you never saw. Each of the Blue Drifters will have their moments tonight – Alexis Sanchez behind his white electric guitar, Colin Colby on bass, Nathan Fleming on pedal steel, and Mayo Valdez with his propulsive drums – but it is the multi-instrumentalist Kullen Fox, seated behind his piano and organ, with both a trumpet and an accordion to hand, who is the driving force of Hurricane Charley.

However, it’s the dancing, gyrating Crockett who plays rainmaker, keeping the storm whipped up. As he will sing later tonight in his self-penned ‘I’m Just a Clown’, if you purchase a ticket, expect to see a show – and that’s just what you get. The energy, quality and colour you get on stage during a Charley Crockett set can’t be beat.

We’re still a long way from breaking out that number, however, though the band does now surprise us with a cover of ‘Act Naturally’. While I know it best from the Beatles cover sung by Ringo, ‘Act Naturally’ is of course a country song by Buck Owens, and the band and crowd both delight in the honky-tonkin’ ease with which it manifests in the room tonight. ‘Act Naturally’ is perhaps a spiritual precursor to Crockett’s ‘I’m Just a Clown’ but, despite his energetic showmanship, Charley, dressed in a black shirt and sharp grey pants, with his signature silver phoenix pendant and obligatory white cowboy hat, is no clown. No “fool who ever hit the big-time”. Charley Crockett is a bona fide old-fashioned star. Not a celebrity, but a star as they used to be. The sort of personality that belongs on a stage; the sort of name you expect to see up in lights. The sort the lights were first made for. No clown could write the music he does, and no fool could hold together such a band.

The Buck Owens song is followed by a Charley original, the slower-paced ‘Odessa’, which moves methodically through its beats, savouring every line. After it ends, Charley wipes the sweat from his brow, perhaps wondering how the sun that beats down on Odessa, Texas has followed him to the north of England. It says a lot that even the South Texan is affected by the heat, but it doesn’t change his performance. He and the band tear into ‘Borrowed Time’, a favourite of mine, but the song itself is on borrowed time, and before you know it the band have trailed its notes into ‘Look What You Done’. The soulful groove is maintained into another song from In the Night, ‘Ain’t Got No Time to Lose’, punctuated by a fine trumpet solo from Kullen Fox.

It’s time to break out a few heavy-hitters. The opening notes of ‘Welcome to Hard Times’ are unmistakeable, and many in the crowd can’t help but sing along. It’s a warm communal moment, a feeling that we’re all in this hard life together and dancing regardless, and the singalong continues into ‘Jamestown Ferry’. It’s not a hot day January, but in the September heat the song sounds at home. Alexis Sanchez smiles broadly from behind his white Fender electric and Kullen Fox, his blue shirtsleeves rolled up, provokes a further roar from the crowd with a bright trumpet solo to make the number swing.

An extended instrumental follows from the Blue Drifters as Charley leaves the stage; when he returns after a brief interlude he is full of praise for them: “Don’t they know how to make a ten-dollar cowboy look pretty gooood?” But he’s pretty good too when he’s in front of them, as he now proves. Taking off his guitar and picking up the microphone, Good Time Charley brings the blues with a sultry, hip-snaking performance of ‘I Feel for You’.

“Corner me in an alley on a dark night in Manchester,” Crockett says to cheers, “and I’ll tell you I’m a blues singer.” The band then pours a groove into ‘Travelin’ Blues’, with Colin Colby’s smooth bass punctuated by Kullen’s trumpet and Charley proving you don’t need to be in a dark alley to find out he’s a blues singer. Another band instrumental follows as Charley wipes the sweat from his face with a white towel.

Charley then proves there’s even more strings to his bow than country and blues and rockabilly, as he pulls on a banjo and picks his way through the traditional folk song ‘Darlin’ Six Months Ain’t Long’. It’s followed by ‘Lilly My Dear’, a Crockett original that sounds like he found it buried in the earth after a hundred years, such is its authentic folk appeal. The banjo lulls the band into an old-timey shuffle, with wistful touches provided by Kullen Fox – now on accordion.

But don’t be fooled by the folksy throwbacks; we’re only in the eye of Hurricane Charley. On the other side the rest of the storm is coming. Keeping his banjo strapped, Crockett leads the Blue Drifters into a fierce rendition of ‘Round This World’, lit up by an unchained Tex-Mex guitar solo from Alexis Sanchez. And then comes the song worth waiting for; the hurricane’s most supreme blow.

Charley is on record as saying ‘Trinity River’ is the song that allows the Blue Drifters to really thrive and show what they can do, and it’s proven once again tonight. Kullen Fox, the man with all the best lines, begins the song’s distinctive trumpet riff that brings a roar from the crowd. The whole band in Hurricane Charley break the Beaufort scale in this song, and Charley himself can’t resist. Now wielding an electric guitar, he provides some licks of his own as he goes down low on the stage, caught amidst the heavy rain of Blue Drifter soul.

“Manchester, we’ve satisfied your needs!” Crockett yells, and after such a song it’s impossible to argue with him. As he sings the praises of the grinning Kullen Fox, we know it’s no idle boast. Hurricanes don’t have hubris; they are pure forces of nature. After twenty-five songs and such a statement, most musicians would think of ending it there, but the prolific Charley Crockett still has songs left for us tonight.

What’s more, he has another unreleased gem. ‘Solitary Road’ is the next song, and with its punching lyrics, a soulful groove driven by Kullen Fox’s organ, and some soaring guitar solos from Alexis Sanchez, I’m happy to tip it as a future fan-favourite after just a single listen.

“Can I get a ‘hallelujah’?” Charley shouts, and he gets one, though God knows why he wants one. Perhaps it’s the heat or the roll he’s on; perhaps it’s just to know he’s got the crowd in the palm of his hand before he launches into the frenetic ‘Goin’ Back to Texas’. When I saw Crockett live last year, this was his song to sign off the night, but here it’s followed up by ‘Silver Dagger’, with Kullen’s swirling organ and a lusty solo from Charley’s unusual-looking brown-and-white electric guitar.

When the Live from the Ryman album is released in a few weeks, it will no doubt show off Charley’s fine country chops as he and the band fill that storied Nashville hall. But I do wonder how well it will show their raucous blues and soul energy, a force epitomised tonight by their final number, ‘I’m Just a Clown’. A perfect soul song, with Charley’s Bill Withers-like vocals, Kullen’s trumpet and Alexis’ bluesy guitar, it’s hard to think of a more perfect song to end tonight’s set.

The crowd doesn’t agree, however – or perhaps they do, but don’t want it to end regardless. As the musicians leave the stage and the lights go down, the whole crowd claps and stomps for an encore, shouting “Charley! Charley! Charley!” as though storms could be summoned by such primitive rituals. But it turns out we too can play rainmaker, for after a full minute of chanting Charley comes back out – alone – to cheers. Behind his acoustic guitar, he sings another unreleased original, ‘The Death of Bill Bailey’, a murder ballad “about a guy who had it comin'”, followed by ‘Time of the Cottonwood Trees’.

“Shall I invite the band back up?”  Charley asks to roars from the crowd. It seems as though this storm can never blow itself out. As the Blue Drifters come back up and a meteorologist somewhere wonders why his barometer has dropped again, Charley praises them and the opening act, Ags Connolly. He then leads the band into a perfect, propulsive version of ‘Paint it Blue’.

“I’m Charley Crockett! These are the Blue Drifters!” Charley had proclaimed after ‘I’m Just a Clown’. Now, after the encore, he reminds us it’s “Charley with an ‘E-Y’, like Charley Pride! Crockett with two T’s like Davy!” He unplugs his guitar and spins the lead around before letting it fall on the stage. It must hit someone in the front row, or at least land very close to them, for Charley reaches out and apologises as he leaves the stage. That person may go home sporting a red welt, but Hurricane Charley with an E-Y has left his mark on all of us.

The storm-tossed crowd filters out slowly, the night still warm despite the late hour. I stand on the street for some time and a white rented Renault Clio drives past, with someone blowing a trumpet from the rolled-down window. I can’t see who it is. But I hope it’s Kullen Fox, still caught in the storm now making its way west towards Dublin.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album The Man from Waco and written by Charley Crockett, unless noted)

  1. Run Horse Run (from Welcome to Hard Times)
  2. 5 More Miles (from The Valley)
  3. Cowboy Candy
  4. Jukebox Charley (Johnny Paycheck/Aubrey Mayhew) (from Jukebox Charley)
  5. Just Like Honey (Crockett/Kullen Fox)
  6. Music City USA (Crockett/Mark Neill) (from Music City USA)
  7. Midnight Run (James Hand) (from 10 for Slim)
  8. Lesson in Depression (Hand) (from 10 for Slim)
  9. Don’t Tell Me That (Hand) (from 10 for Slim)
  10. Ten Dollar Cowboy (unreleased)
  11. Black Sedan (Crockett/Fox)
  12. The Man from Waco (Crockett/Fox/Taylor Grace/Bruce Robison)
  13. Act Naturally (Johnny Russell/Voni Morrison) (unreleased)
  14. Odessa (Crockett/Nathan Fleming)
  15. Borrowed Time (Crockett/Evan Felker) (from The Valley)
  16. Look What You Done (from In the Night)
  17. Ain’t Got No Time to Lose (from In the Night)
  18. Welcome to Hard Times (from Welcome to Hard Times)
  19. Jamestown Ferry (Mack Vickery/Bobby Borchers) (from Lil G.L.’s Honky Tonk Jubilee)
  20. I Feel for You (Jerry Reed) (from Jukebox Charley)
  21. Travelin’ Blues (Eddy Owens) (from Lil G.L.’s Blue Bonanza)
  22. Darlin’ Six Months Ain’t Long (Traditional) (from Field Recordings, Vol. 1)
  23. Lilly My Dear (Crockett/Vincent Neil Emerson/Colin Colby/Tyler Heiser) (from Welcome to Hard Times)
  24. Round This World (from Music City USA)
  25. Trinity River
  26. Solitary Road (unreleased)
  27. Goin’ Back to Texas (from Lonesome as a Shadow)
  28. Silver Dagger (from In the Night)
  29. I’m Just a Clown
  30. Encore: The Death of Bill Bailey (unreleased)
  31. Encore: Time of the Cottonwood Trees
  32. Encore: Paint it Blue (from Welcome to Hard Times)

Molten Country Gold: Mike and the Moonpies Live in Manchester

April 8, 2023 /

Tuesday 4th April 2023

Retro Bar, Manchester, England

There is but one goal tonight, it seems: to kill the drummer through exhaustion, or die trying. When Mike and the Moonpies take the stage in the small, claustrophobic cellar of Manchester’s Retro Bar, they quickly reach 100 mph from a standing start, and don’t let up for the rest of the night. ‘Paycheck to Paycheck’ is the first song, and when the band’s set ends twenty-two songs later, drummer Taylor Englert has certainly earned his. A relatively new addition to the Moonpies, replacing Kyle Ponder in 2022, Englert has been the fierce catalyst of tonight’s white-hot band performance, which has brought good-time Texas honky-tonk to the north of England.

I’ve attended a number of country music gigs in the last year – independent and non-mainstream artists like Sierra Ferrell, Charley Crockett, Nick Shoulders and Tyler Childers – and at each one I’ve been surprised by how enthusiastically they are received by the English crowds. An ocean away from the Texan dirt, the waters of the Ozarks and the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia, people turn up to listen to country music and sing along to their favourite songs, uttering roars of recognition at the opening bars. The numbers may still be small – I’d say between 40 and 50 people mingle beneath the dark blue lights of the Retro Bar tonight – but the fact that they – we – are even here at all seems pretty remarkable in itself.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be. Cheap Silver and Solid Country Gold will be the best-represented album in the Moonpies’ setlist tonight, and the fact it was recorded in England – at the famous Abbey Road Studios – suggests that perhaps this music isn’t as far from home as frontman Mike Harmeier’s Texas twang might suggest. It’s a sentiment confirmed by tonight’s opening act Mike West, a singer-songwriter from the Wirral. With his first songs, ‘Work On’ – a meaty slice of Mersey Delta blues – and ‘Ballad of the White Collar Arsonist’, he taps into the vein of working-man’s-plight that country has always given honest voice to, regardless of which side of the Atlantic it is sung from. West, the first Mike in front of the mike tonight, caught my attention when he opened for Nick Shoulders back in November. A long-haired, bearded Scouser with a heavy-metal voice and a biker jacket might sound unpromising at first for a country fan, but he quickly won me over that night with his intelligent and catchy original songs, delivered in a powerful and dexterous voice.

This time around, West has teamed up with Rob Wakefield on fiddle, further emphasising the authentic love for country music vested deep in his songwriting. ‘Mothman’, his next song, is a great signature for this artist: evocative singing, a catchy melody and intelligent lyrics on an original and idiosyncratic subject. It’s particularly exciting that West’s best songs tonight are ones yet to be released: he follows ‘Goin’ to Hell’, from The Next Life album, with the ingenious ‘How to Build a Guillotine’, a humorous answer to the political problems of our time.

Both ‘Guillotine’ and the next song, ‘Patron Saint of the Lost and Found’, will be on West’s upcoming album, and he cites Ernest Tubb and George Jones as inspirations for them respectively. He says the last time he played the Retro Bar there were five people present (Rob Wakefield, the fiddle player, is able to trump him with a mighty seven), but when he leaves the stage tonight it’s to deserved applause from many times that number. Now that he’s got a fiddle with him, there should be no stopping him.

But tonight’s the night of a different Mike, and just before the Moonpies take the stage the grey metal shutter on the bar is raised, almost theatrically, like a mafia hit in The Godfather. In what was the darkest and most unpromising part of the room, we’re now ambushed by a dazzling array of alcoholic possibilities on the shelves. The young man and woman behind the bar begin serving drinks, and pretty soon the Moonpies take the stage to cheers.

The 100mph marathon drag-race begins, ‘Paycheck to Paycheck’ being followed by ‘Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em’. Omar Oyoque, the larger-than-life bassist who is never shorn of the smile on his face, begins cheerleading the crowd. Wearing a Kiss t-shirt and possessing of a mass of curly 80s-hair-metal locks, Omar should stick out like a sore thumb in a country outfit. But you get the sense he’s the heart and soul of the band, and not just because of the steadiness he provides when stroking his white bass guitar through tonight’s songs. He never stops grinning or mouthing the words of the songs to himself; he’s the biggest Moonpies fan in a room full of them.

After two songs the band are already smoking, giving the lie to the next song, ‘Country Music’s Dead’. Taylor Englert, youthful-looking with his pencil-thin moustache, is already sweating, and Mike Harmeier praises the drummer before showing him no mercy with the next song, the appropriately-named ‘Fast as Lightning’.

Drinking from a bottle of Corona, Mike leads the band through ‘Bottom of the Pile’, a lost song of Gary Stewart, before breaking into ‘Rainy Day’ from their most recent album, One to Grow On. The song’s a revelation to me: I’d heard it on the album but it hadn’t really left its mark until tonight. I’m beginning to understand why those in the know say Mike and the Moonpies are a band you have to see live if you get the chance. The best versions of many of the songs on the setlist tonight aren’t the album cuts but the furious and exuberant renditions I’m hearing live from the cellar of Manchester’s Retro Bar. As though to prove my point, the band follow up ‘Rainy Day’ with ‘Miss Fortune’; a song that looks clichéd in the cold light of day but which from the stage of a blue-lit night-time bar sounds like the best song you’ve ever heard. There’s something about a live Moonpie that you just don’t get baked into a vinyl record.

They’ve not been the first band to take advantage of this energy tonight; after Mike West departed to applause, Stacy Antonel took the stage with a full band of her own. With a green dress and a shock of vibrant red hair, her striking look is completed by a thick pair of glasses which give her the look of a female Buddy Holly. Counting her band into the soulful number that opens her set, the Californian delivers an smooth and addictive blend of country, jazz and soul. ‘Always the Outsider’ and ‘Planetary Heartache’ are the highlights among her songs, but there will always be a special place in the heart of any receptive audience for ‘Douchebag Benny’. The propulsive jazzy catharsis of this song, about breaking up with a guy who turned out to be a “closet douche”, is a natural crowd-pleaser.

A flyer pasted to the wall of the Retro Bar misspells her name as ‘Atonel’, but there’s been nothing atonal about Stacy Antonel’s singing tonight. It’s been powerful and expressive, her band’s been tight, and her songs – douchebag ex-boyfriends aside – have been tender, intelligent and, in her words, ‘metaphysical’. After the show tonight, she will be found outside the entrance, sitting on a bench in the still Manchester night, quietly discussing the meaning of life with a fan.

But that nocturnal stillness is in our future, after the show; inside, Mike and the Moonpies are here from 10 till close. Zachary Moulton’s mournful pedal steel punctuates the opening lines that Mike sings – “Barely out of seventh grade/Mom and Dad went their separate ways” – before Omar puts his hand to his ear to encourage the audience to sing along to the chorus of ‘Steak Night at the Prairie Rose’. Mike Harmeier grins under the lights.

Though they’ve been going at 100 mph all night, the Moonpies now somehow find another gear. The crowd favourite ‘Beaches of Biloxi’ proves to be the best song tonight among some tough competition; the percussive claps from the few-dozen lightly-inebriated Mancunians put those from the album version to shame. It’s scarcely believable how well the song works tonight; everything’s in synergy, and I can’t begin to describe the effect in words. You can’t write how music feels; this is what they mean when they say you need to hear it live.

The band follows up this magical moment with another high-tempo number. If ‘Things Ain’t Like They Used to Be’, it’s not through want of trying: Mike Harmeier summons up ghosts of the Fifties on this frenetic song with an impressive rock wail, and the band’s now in a deep and timeless groove. ‘The Way’ and ‘Danger’ follow in quick succession; the latter particularly notable for some subtle guitar licks from Catlin Rutherford.

My view of Catlin’s been obscured tonight from my position near the bar, but he deserves as much credit as any other Moonpie for turning tonight’s solid setlist into molten country gold. He proves it in the next song, the rollicking bar-room song ‘Bottled Beer’; appropriately, Mike Harmeier downs a bottle of beer during Catlin’s guitar solo.

Omar puts his hand to his ear again, and again the crowd sing along to a chorus. This time it’s ‘You Look Good in Neon’, and Omar grins. “And if you wanna slow-dance,” Mike sings, and Omar begins slow-dancing behind his bass. He’s long since tied his mass of black hair into a ponytail in the heat of the Retro cellar, but his enthusiasm can’t be tamed, and he’s been jumping up and down to the songs all night.

We’re into the home stretch, and Mike and the Moonpies aren’t going gentle into that good night. There’s a full-blooded sing-along rendition of ‘Hour on the Hour’, a quintessential Moonpies song, followed by ‘Road Crew’. The latter witnesses some pedal steel virtuosity from Zachary Moulton and solos from both Omar and Mike. Propelling it all is some fast and furious drumming from Taylor Englert, somehow still going.

“Well, I’ve got to run to keep from hidin’,” Mike sings, before completing the entire first verse of ‘Midnight Rider’ a cappella. However, the Moonpies aren’t about to cover the famous Allman Brothers Band song; instead, they use Mike’s prompt to break into ‘The Hard Way’, clearly not shy of highlighting its Southern rock inspiration. It seems country’s more rock-‘n’-roll than rock itself nowadays; while rock music’s up its own arse and mainstream country plumbs new depths of cringe, there’s a wealth of independent and alternative country artists tending the roots with a wild care. Mike and the Moonpies play good-time music in hard times, and it’s impossible not to watch them enjoying themselves on stage and be moved by it.

‘Dance with Barbara’, another lost song of Gary Stewart, is next, and its simple but infectious honky-tonkin’ is perfect for this stage of the night. The music is infectious and the room is bouncing; even the two young bartenders are dancing, jitterbugging together behind the taps. I find myself wondering if the female bartender is named Barbara; perhaps that would be too perfect to be true. But everything else is going the Moonpies’ way, so why not?

It’s time to think about how to stop this hurtling train. Mike leads the band into ‘London Homesick Blues’, a nod of appreciation to his English audience, even though right now London feels further away from this great city of the North than the sweaty honky-tonks of Austin, Texas where the Moonpies were birthed. The band then commit to a fine rendition of ‘Cheap Silver’, recreating quite well the lush arrangement of the Abbey Road original and showing they’re not just the best live honky-tonk band on the planet.

But just in case we forget, they follow up ‘Cheap Silver’ with some solid country gold in the fast-paced ‘We’re Gone’. It’s Mike Harmeier’s final song, but he heads to the side of the stage to let his band close out the night. Omar Oyoque takes centre-stage and leads the Moonpies through a white-hot instrumental, at one point performing a neat trick: his back to the audience, he arches his back and slowly kneels, until he’s contorted in a position that even an Olympic gymnast might feel something pop. Still playing his bass guitar, he then slowly uncontorts himself and effortlessly stands back up. The band doesn’t miss a beat throughout. They haven’t all night. I don’t know the name of the instrumental (it might be a version of ‘The Real Country’), or whether it’s just a jam from a tight band playing themselves out, but a peek at the printed setlist crib-sheet for the night informs me that this final number is just labelled as ‘COUNTRY‘. Damn straight.

Setlist:

(all songs written by Mike Harmeier, unless noted)

  1. Paycheck to Paycheck (Harmeier/Adam Odor/Omar Oyoque) (from One to Grow On)
  2. Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em (from Mockingbird)
  3. Country Music’s Dead (Harmeier/Odor/John Baumann) (single)
  4. Fast as Lightning (Harmeier/Odor/Zachary Moulton/Rance May/Catlin Rutherford) (from Cheap Silver and Solid Country Gold)
  5. Bottom of the Pile (Gary Stewart/Bill Eldridge) (from Touch of You)
  6. Rainy Day (Harmeier/Odor) (from One to Grow On)
  7. Miss Fortune (Harmeier/Odor/May) (from Cheap Silver)
  8. Steak Night at the Prairie Rose (from Steak Night at the Prairie Rose)
  9. Beaches of Biloxi (Harmeier/May) (from Steak Night)
  10. Things Ain’t Like They Used to Be (from Steak Night)
  11. The Way (Tony Scalzo) (single)
  12. Danger (Harmeier/Odor) (from Cheap Silver)
  13. Bottled Beer (from The Real Country)
  14. You Look Good in Neon (Harmeier/Odor/Rutherford) (from Cheap Silver)
  15. Hour on the Hour (Harmeier/Odor) (from One to Grow On)
  16. Road Crew (from Steak Night)
  17. The Hard Way (from The Hard Way)
  18. Dance with Barbara (Stewart/Steve Hunter) (from Touch of You)
  19. London Homesick Blues (Nunn) (from Cheap Silver)
  20. Cheap Silver (Harmeier/Odor/Rutherford) (from Cheap Silver)
  21. We’re Gone (from Steak Night)
  22. Moonpies Instrumental (Country)

City, Raise a Country Boy High: Tyler Childers Live in London

February 19, 2023 /

Friday 10th February 2023

Islington Assembly Hall, London, England

A pilgrimage, then. I’ve been fortunate, in the gigs I’ve attended in the last eight months – Sierra Ferrell, Charley Crockett and Nick Shoulders – that they’ve all been close to my home in the north-west of England. Since first discovering this alternative country music during lockdown, I’ve been determined to attend whatever gigs I could, but Tyler Childers’ UK tour consists of just a couple of dates down in London. At the back of my mind is the memory that I made no effort to attend a Tom Petty gig on the rare occasions he came to England, something I still regret deeply. When Petty died in 2017, I felt there would be no more great music for me to find. But though I wouldn’t be aware of it for another few years, Colter Wall had released his self-titled album a few months earlier, and Tyler Childers released the masterpiece that is Purgatory.

Determined to attend, and fresh off the disappointment of missing out on Billy Strings tickets when he came to Manchester in December, I attacked my F5 key during the pre-sale and managed to secure a ticket to the second date of Tyler’s two-day Islington residency. Still rueing the lack of effort I once made for the Tom Petty dates in similar circumstances, I take the train down from Manchester to London: two and a half hours through plain, unscenic country, and perhaps the only train journey you couldn’t write a song about.

Tyler comes on stage alone, to cheers from the 800+ people in tonight’s audience. He wears a blue denim jacket and a beanie hat and carries an acoustic guitar. While his band waits in the corridor backstage, he pulls a chair up to the microphone at centre-stage and throws his beanie hat to the floor, his closely-cropped ginger hair bleached by the shine of the venue’s spotlights. Perhaps appropriately for his solo segment, Tyler opens with the Hank Williams song ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’.

But it’s with his second song that the night truly begins. The opening lines of ‘Shake the Frost’, one of Tyler’s finest displays of lyricism, draws a roar of recognition from the crowd, who sing along to every word. It’s a special moment worthy of a special song. “And I love you like the mountains/Love the way the morning opens/To a soft and bright greeting from the sun.” The song ends to rapturous applause and Tyler grins. There’s a reason this show sold out in minutes: to hear Tyler Childers sing in that distinctive pained wail of his is a powerful experience, and he’s arguably the greatest songwriter of his generation. There hasn’t been poetry like this on a London stage since Bill Shakespeare was out here hustlin’.

Speaking of provincial artists who made their mark in London, Tyler sits and tells us how this mini-UK tour came about. When recording Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?, his most recent album – tonight is considered part of the Send in the Hounds tour, which truly kicks off in April back in the States – he thought it would be “pretty cool if we could roll some of the stuff through the plates at Abbey Road”. Due to Covid, this had to be done over Zoom, but Tyler thought it’d be cool if, “when we got the opportunity, if we could just go over and bum around a little bit and have a field trip”. This is his field trip now, and he thought, “well, shit… the whole entire band’s gonna be there, we might as well try to pick up some shows”. I don’t know how true this anecdote is, or if it’s just a bit of colour Tyler’s decided to add to the night, but it gives me a buzz. I’m as big a Beatles fan as I am a Tom Petty fan – I pondered for a whole three seconds before buying tonight’s concert poster, a psychedelic Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine-inspired piece, from the merchandise counter at the entrance, and I spy a Höfner bass – the iconic ‘Beatles bass’ – on stage tonight. But if it gets played at any point tonight by Craig Burletic, Tyler’s bass player, I’m unaware of it. I’m in the front row, but on the opposite side of the room.

“I wrote this song for my lady,” Tyler says, before launching into ‘Lady May’, the tender love song written for his wife Senora May. The audience sings along from the start, as they do for the follow-up, the tear-jerker ‘Follow You to Virgie’. Ironically – or perhaps intentionally – when Tyler reaches the line “make sense of all these strings” in this second song, he hits a bum note and has to find his way back to the rhythm. He does, his acoustic guitar singing again, and it’s a fine end to his solo set.

A note here should also be made for Tommy Prine, who opened for Tyler tonight with a strong acoustic set of his own. Talented and affable, the son of John is just starting out and hasn’t yet released an album, but his single ‘Ships in the Harbor’ is a strong piece of songwriting and gets an enthusiastic reception from the crowd. Other highlights from his set include ‘Gandalf’ – “it’s kinda like when Gandalf came back all in white” – and ‘Cash/Carter Hills’, a wistful song about soaking up the magic in a special place.

But there’s no more special place than London tonight, as Tyler’s band the Food Stamps join him on the stage. They get themselves set up behind their instruments, and the anticipation in the crowd grows. As well it might, for with a wink to James Barker on pedal steel, Tyler launches into ‘I Swear (to God)’, a fan-favourite he’s not played live in years.

As the crowd sings along, the band introduce themselves through a series of solos – first Tyler and then C.J. Cain on guitars, then Jesse Wells on the fiddle, Chase Lewis on the keys and finally James Barker on the pedal steel. Only Craig Burletic on bass and Rod Elkins on drums don’t get a solo, but their rhythm section is keeping the whole thing together. It’s a cracking song, and the shouts from the audience are particularly lusty during the line “Fire in the hole!”

Tyler and the band follow up with another song from the Purgatory album, ‘Tattoos’. A beautiful song, kin to ‘Shake the Frost’ in its lyricism, this number quietly demonstrates one of Tyler Childers’ unsung qualities as an artist. His band can rock – as they will demonstrate later tonight – but what makes Tyler perennially country is the space he provides in his songs for some glorious pedal steel. Barker has the task of providing this dreamy sound to ‘Tattoos’ tonight, and provides it well.

After this one-two punch of songs from Purgatory, Tyler moves into left-field. Picking up a fiddle, he leads the band into a four-minute bluegrass instrumental. I don’t know what the song is – setlist.fm will later claim it is ‘Ways of the World’ – but it’s a good ‘un. Tyler’s fiddle dominates, but there are some nice touches from Barker’s pedal steel, and Craig Burletic’s bass solo fits the song well. As unusual as it is to witness one of music’s most magnetic vocalists commit to an instrumental, it’s a pleasant diversion.

We’re back to normal for the next number, the fun and wholesome ‘Country Squire’. It’s impossible not to bask in the humble goodness of this song, as Tyler sings of providing for his family by buying a caravan: “It’s a 24-foot-long vessel, measures eight feet wide… Hey! Hey! Hey! Woah!” This isn’t part of the song. “Hold up? What the fuck are you doing? Hey!” The song stops – Tyler’s seen something happening in the crowd to my far-left. “What the fuck is your problem? How old are you?” I crane my neck to see what the trouble is; from the balcony above, people lean over to look.

Send in the hounds. Security staff move into the crowd, though I can’t see anything happening from where I’m stood. Perhaps provoked by Tyler’s song about honest self-improvement and domestic bliss, it seems a fight has broken out. From the stage, Tyler says security should take “the dude in the orange probably, too, and the dude in the white”. There’s a murmuring in the crowd, and I try to transform my neck into Tyler’s 24-foot-long caravan to get a look. Someone takes the opportunity to shout for ‘Whitehouse Road’, not for the first time tonight – or the last.

“Everybody good?” Tyler says, to cheers from the 800+ members of the audience, now numbering a few less. He picks up from where he left off and finishes the incendiary song. It’s something to note on the set-list: ‘Country Squire (with Bellend Interlude)’.

The band are unfazed, soon finding their rhythm again with ‘Bus Route’, which steers into ‘Deadman’s Curve’. Perhaps deciding the rowdier members of the audience need some Jesus in their lives, Tyler puts down his guitar and launches into ‘Heart You’ve Been Tendin” and ‘Old Country Church’. The experimental gospel album Hounds has been divisive among Tyler’s fanbase, for a number of reasons not worth getting into here, but its songs sound great tonight.

The band begins the backbeat to ‘Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?’, but Tyler doesn’t immediately begin the song. Instead, he formally introduces the band to the audience – a long, colourful introduction with Tyler as a sort of circus ringleader. As each band member is introduced (“keeper of the keys, Mr Chase Lewis… the Professor, Jesse Wells”), they punctuate it with a piece of flair from their chosen instruments. But they’ve already introduced themselves with their playing tonight, and they stamp their mark on the night again with a fine version of ‘Hounds’, the slower album version rather than the up-tempo version Tyler has fired up at past concerts.

After ‘Hounds’ ends, Tyler picks up his fiddle again. While he tunes it up, some members of the audience shout out more song requests. ‘Whitehouse Road’ again, of course, which is a non-starter, but someone a bit more realistic shouts for ‘Greatest Story Ever Told’, which at least is something that Tyler still plays live. There’s no indication Tyler is going to bend to these hecklers, and nor should he. I’m already irritated by them, and I’m at my first Tyler Childers concert. He must be pig-sick of it. But it’s become a bit of a meme at this point, and perhaps there’s a subset of Tyler Childers fans who don’t consider the experience complete unless they’ve shouted for ‘Whitehouse Road’, the way ‘Free Bird’ was once shouted. But still, I’m a bit surprised that the behaviour has followed him to England, like an albatross around his neck. It’s not even one of his better songs.

Tyler’s response to the requests for old favourites is clear: another fiddle instrumental. Again, I don’t know what the song is – setlist.fm informs me it is ‘Cluck Old Hen’ – but it’s another fun digression. Tyler and the Professor Jesse Wells trade fiddles nicely, and there’s room for some screaming pedal steel from ‘Bloodbath’ Barker and some powerful drumming from Rod Elkins.

The next song is ‘Creeker’, and the audience sings along as Tyler, with no instrument, gestures with his hands. He sings of “the ways that the city can bring a country boy down”, and between the incessant requests for ‘Whitehouse Road’ and breaking up a fight, he’s been provided with a few more in London tonight. It’s a blessing that the vast majority of the audience is really digging the show, and roars with approval during this rare opportunity to see Tyler Childers live in England. Back on his acoustic guitar, Tyler follows ‘Creeker’ with ‘Born Again’, characterised by some great harmonies from Craig Burletic.

The good music, however, hasn’t stopped the shouts of ‘Whitehouse Road’ in between songs, and sometimes during them, as though perhaps the reason Tyler wasn’t singing it was because he just hadn’t been asked enough. To be fair, it seems to be the same few people, and I’ve heard it so often tonight that I’ve come to recognise the individual hecklers’ voices. A new one now joins the babble. “Whitehouse Road, Tyler?”, a chipper voice pipes up, as though helpfully reminding Tyler of the song. Perhaps he’d forgotten it in the thirty seconds since it was last called for. Have people not thought that perhaps the reason Tyler doesn’t perform the song anymore is that, the cost of living being what it is, it’s now impossible to get “higher than the grocery bill”?

Rather than the old, Tyler’s response is again to launch into a new song. It’s the unreleased ‘Percheron Mules’ which, with lines about “a hundred head of goat” and “picking dill”, proves to be a fun, oddball little country number. Tyler sings it with a smile on his face, trading grins with Barker on guitar. It reminds me of the Sixties rockabilly song ‘Haunted House’, at least until Craig Burletic and Rod Elkins come in with some delicious high harmonies on the line “compost that he needs”, sounding like a ghost or two has followed them from the Abbey Road studios. The harmonies are so good Tyler pauses for a moment in admiration. Naturally, someone takes the opportunity to shout for ‘Whitehouse Road’. Twice.

The next song up is ‘Way of the Triune God’, and unlike previous songs from the Hounds album, Tyler stands behind his acoustic guitar rather than gesturing with his hands. It’s a better look for him, a better feel, even if he’s not always strumming the guitar. But it must be hard to “WHITEHOUSE ROAD!” when someone is “WHITEHOUSE ROAD!” always sh–“WHITEHOUSE ROAD!”–outing for a certain song.

Everyone is too busy having fun to be derailed by these obnoxious few hecklers. The audience begins footstomping along with the opening chords of ‘House Fire’, a pulsating song that provides an opportunity for an intense display of musicianship from the Food Stamps. It’s a song made by Chase Lewis’ white-hot organ, but the others have license to display their chops: James Barker’s electric guitar, harmonies from the bass-drivin’ Craig Burletic, and fiddle from the bald, bespectacled Jesse Wells, looking every inch the Professor. At one point in the song, Tyler sits down on the chair he’d brought for his solo set, strumming his guitar and enjoying the performance from his band.

The tinderbox ‘House Fire’ leads straight into ‘Tulsa Turnaround’, a mid-tempo Kenny Rogers song turned into a hard-rockin’ number driven by Craig’s propulsive bass and Rod’s drums, that showcases Tyler’s tearing John Lennon-esque vocals. James Barker is particularly good, and with his wailing electric guitar, check shirt, thick beard and mop of hair, it’s like he’s stepped straight off a Skynyrd stage in the Seventies directly into 2023. By the end, a gleeful Tyler is bouncing on his heels at his band’s transformation into a stone-cold, red-hot 70s Southern rock band. These last ten minutes have been perhaps the best of the night.

After the fire, Tyler gives the instruments a chance to cool down. ‘Universal Sound’ is perhaps the hardest song of Tyler’s to recreate on a stage, but the band is able to capture its restful, spaced-out feel.

We’re reaching the end of the night, and there’s only a couple of numbers to go. Could it really be ‘Whitehouse Road’? Another aggressive shout for the song draws an immediate “Nope!” from Tyler, to laughs from the rest of the audience. He bobs his head from side to side; he’s determined to have fun and the cocaine song just doesn’t do that for him anymore.

Instead, it’s ‘Honky Tonk Flame’, and the fire the band kindled in ‘House Fire’ and ‘Tulsa Turnaround’ is reignited by a screaming pedal steel solo from Barker and some powerful rock drums from Rod Elkins. Tyler says there’ll be no encore – his voice can’t take it, he says – but he goes full-bore into the vocals for tonight’s final song.

It’s a cover of the Charlie Daniels song ‘Trudy’, and it allows for some fine guitar solo trade-offs between James Barker and Jesse Wells, to admiring smiles from the watching Tyler. Bloodbath and The Professor have been vying for top-dog status tonight, and I think Barker, well-named for the Hounds tour, has edged the battle. I don’t know if it’s just because of my penchant for pedal steel, but the West Virginian’s put everything into every song, alternating between pedal steel and electric guitar when the songs require. The entire band has shone, however, and in ‘Trudy’ we’re treated to an organ solo from Chase and then a bass solo from the ever-energetic Craig Burletic, bopping his huge mass of curly black hair. The song slows down and then speeds up to a fiery finish, drawing a whoop from Tyler. It ends with deserved roars of approval from the audience.

The band leaves the stage to applause. Tyler puts on his beanie and bows. As the crowd filters out, stereo music is played over the sound system. To my surprise, the song is ‘Breakdown’, followed by ‘Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll’. Considering the failure to watch Tom Petty live was one of the things that motivated me to experience this show when I got the chance, it’s a remarkable moment of kismet. Quite unexpectedly, I find I have now – after a fashion – heard Tom Petty at a concert venue.

I find myself thinking about tonight’s increasingly rude heckling, and how we reached this almost memetic stage with ‘Whitehouse Road’. After hearing it shouted for God knows how many times tonight, between songs and even during songs, I’d be perfectly happy never to hear it again. I’ve quickly developed an aversion to it, and it’s no wonder that Tyler’s so dead-set against it; he must have it shouted at him at every gig.

But at the same time, I’d been rather hoping, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Tyler would’ve played ‘Feathered Indians’ tonight. I wouldn’t shout for it, and the lack of it hasn’t made the night any less special, but it’s my favourite song of his, and another one he regularly refuses to play live. This is a common point of discussion among his fanbase, with many speculating he won’t play the songs about drugs and drinking since he got sober, others that he won’t sing love songs that were written about women before he met his wife. But this is all bald speculation, and I find myself wondering if perhaps the reason we’ve reached the point where people can shout inanely for ‘Whitehouse Road’ at least a dozen times during a set is because Tyler is a bit too hidebound about playing his old songs, or at least in explaining why he won’t.

This comes to my mind as ‘Breakdown’ plays over the sound system. The last song Tom Petty ever played in concert before he passed was ‘American Girl’, his first hit from forty years earlier. Petty cultivated a fantastic relationship with his fanbase, and here’s what he had to say about playing the old songs, in a 2005 interview with American Songwriter magazine later reproduced in the book Conversations with Tom Petty:

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to play ‘American Girl’ anymore… But then maybe you’ll get two hours into the show, and the place is frenzied, and the vibe is so great, and the first couple chords of that song come on, and there’s such a rush of adrenaline throughout the building, that the next thing you know, you’re really digging playing ‘American Girl’. And I’ll feel, I can’t believe I’m digging this again, but I am.”

I don’t know what Tyler Childers’ full reasoning is for omitting certain fan-favourites from his repertoire. And regardless of what it might be, he certainly doesn’t deserve to be repeatedly dry-gulched by loud, arrogant shouts for ‘Whitehouse Road’. There’s been one particularly persistent heckler tonight, and I find myself wondering what that person’s reaction would have been if ‘Whitehouse Road’ had actually been performed tonight – I like to imagine they wouldn’t know what to do next.

I certainly can’t find fault with tonight’s show, and it’s been the best live show I’ve yet attended. Nor can I argue against the songs that have replaced old fan-favourites in the set-list: Tyler Childers continues to write and perform excellent songs. And yet, I can’t help but wonder how it would have felt if Tyler had strummed those acoustic chords that open ‘Feathered Indians’, and there had been that rush of adrenaline throughout the building that Tom Petty spoke of. Tyler’s got a taste of that tonight, smiling at the singalong recognition of ‘Shake the Frost’ and ‘I Swear (to God)’, but a song like ‘Feathered Indians’ would be something else entirely. Tyler never intended the song to become so big – it was never released as a single – but some songs just hit right, and its dreamy pedal steel guitar line can provide a transcendental bliss as much as any gospel song. I don’t doubt for one moment that ‘American Girl’ sounded incredible on that final night.

But it says a lot that Tyler Childers and his band can still provide the best live experience I’ve witnessed in spite of these petty misgivings of mine. The songwriting craft has been impeccable and Tyler’s voice an experience in itself. The band’s burned so hot at times I’m surprised the soles of their shoes didn’t melt onto the stage, and I’ll remember the footstomping to ‘House Fire’ and the singalong to ‘Shake the Frost’ every time I listen to those songs. The mini-tour in London is now over; I head back to Manchester, and Tyler and the band back to America. The fans over there have a firestorm heading their way, if only they’ll hold off on shouting ‘Whitehouse Road’ long enough to give it oxygen.

Setlist:

(all songs written by Tyler Childers, unless noted)

  1. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (Hank Williams) (unreleased)
  2. Shake the Frost (from Live on Red Barn Radio)
  3. Lady May (from Purgatory)
  4. Follow You to Virgie (from Live on Red Barn Radio)
  5. I Swear (to God) (from Purgatory)
  6. Tattoos (from Purgatory)
  7. Ways of the World* (Traditional) (unreleased)
  8. Country Squire (from Country Squire)
  9. Bus Route (from Country Squire)
  10. Deadman’s Curve (from Live on Red Barn Radio)
  11. Heart You’ve Been Tendin’ (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  12. Old Country Church (J. W. Vaughn) (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  13. Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  14. Cluck Old Hen* (Traditional) (unreleased)
  15. Creeker (from Country Squire)
  16. Born Again (from Purgatory)
  17. Percheron Mules (unreleased)
  18. Way of the Triune God (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
  19. House Fire (from Country Squire)
  20. Tulsa Turnaround (Alex Harvey/Larry Collins) (unreleased)
  21. Universal Sound (from Purgatory)
  22. Honky Tonk Flame (from Purgatory)
  23. Trudy (Charlie Daniels) (unreleased)

* according to setlist.fm

Rakehelly Blues: Nick Shoulders Live at The York

November 12, 2022 /

Sunday 6th November 2022

The York, Bolton, England

rakehelly – ˈrāk-ˌhe-lē

adj. – wild, dissolute, raucous

It’s a dark, cold Sunday evening and, like many people across England tonight, I’m standing in a pub drinking pilsner and contemplating the unhappy thought of having to go to work on Monday morning. But unlike the rest of the country, save the fifty or so people who gradually fill The York in Bolton over the next half an hour, I have something to look forward to before the weekly grind begins again. In this small, unassuming pub, with a cold wind blowing through the open door, I’m waiting for Nick Shoulders to take the stage.

Among my friends and co-workers, I’m known as the country music fan – itself a true oddity in England – and for weeks I’ve delighted in telling them that I’m going to this gig. Not in the vain hope that they’ll be turned on to the catchy melodies and intelligent lyrics of this great artist – all evidence to the contrary, country music is little more than line-dancing and ‘Cotton Eye Joe’ to them – but because I enjoy the look of confusion on their faces. “I’m going to see a guy with a mullet who yodels and makes trumpet sounds with his mouth,” I say, and they look at me as if I’ve recited a haiku in Yiddish. “Well, enjoy,” they reply, as they back away slowly and wonder whether to inform H.R. about my imminent mental breakdown.

My joy in seeing them trying to process this is surpassed only by my delight at being here myself tonight. I’ve been to two excellent gigs in recent months – Sierra Ferrell’s bewitching show in June and Charley Crockett a few days ago on Halloween, but this is the one I’ve been looking forward to the most. Despite my anticipation, I’m also slightly worried. This is a pub, not a dedicated music venue; at least one sad, heartfelt song by Gravedancer will be drowned out by chatter tonight, and there are two blokes loudly discussing Manchester United’s loss to Aston Villa a few hours earlier. Tonight’s musicians will all successfully tap into the energy in the room tonight, but it’s a fragile energy.

Nevertheless, the night has an endearingly non-premium feel to it. Rather than a “backstage”, there’s an area of the main room cordoned off for the musicians – we see Grant D’Aubin, Nick’s bass player, reclining there with an acoustic guitar as the pub begins to fill. When Nick emerges from behind the cordon of amps and merchandise boxes (presumably to go pee), he moves through the crowd to do so.

A tall, bearded man with long hair takes the stage. He strums an acoustic guitar and begins to sing in a heavy-metal growl. At first, I think he’s a roadie gone rogue, as I thought Gravedancer (a.k.a. Baker McKinney, who I’ve seen walking around) was the only support act on this tour. But the metalhead introduces himself as Mike West, a country singer from the Wirral, and he’s the first of tonight’s pleasant surprises. He has the unenviable task of being the support act to the support act, but his enthusiasm proves infectious.

West is the co-founder of Rogue Country (and consequently one of those responsible for bringing the incredible Sierra Ferrell to the north-west back in June), and he says he was only meant to be in the audience tonight, so he’s stoked to be up on the stage. He makes the most of it, delivering an energetic set. His heavy-metal singing (at one point, he mentions with pleasure that the road he took to get here tonight was called the A666) proves surprisingly flexible, and he succeeds in knitting the disparate crowd into a genuine audience. Highlights from his set include his latest single, ‘Mothman’, and a new song called ‘How to Build a Guillotine’. The latter, which West describes as “like if Ernest Tubb had been in the French Revolution”, is particularly creative. It’s currently unreleased, but hopefully not for long: it’s something of an earworm, and I want to hear it again.

At one point, West congratulates the audience. Watching Nick Shoulders live in such a small venue, he says, is something we’ll be able to brag about in years to come. He’s not wrong. It’s been a surprise to me to go to these gigs – Ferrell, Crockett, and now Shoulders – and see large numbers of people singing along to songs that I thought only I knew. The crowds might still be small – as I mentioned earlier, I think tonight’s crowd numbers fifty at most – but that’s more than the 42 who attended the Sex Pistols’ first punk gig in nearby Manchester, eulogised in the film 24 Hour Party People.

The punk analogy is an appropriate one. The more devoted Shoulderheads will know that Nick started out as the drummer in a punk band, and there’s a rebellious attitude tonight – even the odd protest song – that sees metalheads, hardcore punk rockers and country fans all in the same room, with none seeming out of place. Tonight might not be an epoch-making moment like that Sex Pistols gig, and Shoulders is unlikely to ever push to the front of our culture, yodelling away on The Late, Late Show in an Ed Sullivan moment, but Mike West, in highlighting our bragging rights, has put his finger on something. Even before Nick Shoulders takes the stage, there’s a vibe in the air, a sense of things coming together. Heavy metal, punk, protest and country – the harmony of the revolutionary and the traditional might be just the sound we need in such crazy and divisive times.

Next up is Gravedancer, whose mix of traditional country music and heavy-metal appearance is even more incongruous than that of Mike West. Tattooed, skin-headed and with a beard longer than the A666, it’s startling when Gravedancer runs through a set of tender, emotionally-raw songs picked pensively on an acoustic guitar, including the beautiful self-penned ‘Azalea’. So complete is this effect that when he announces he’d like to sing a traditional English folk song, it receives a quiet and respectful reception from the crowd. I don’t think everyone gets the joke, but I wouldn’t want to live in a world where Arkansas skinheads can’t play ‘Mr. Blobby’ straight-faced as a wistful guitar-pickin’ song.

It is, finally, time for Nick Shoulders to take the stage. He wears a vest and a big fur hat; with his hair hanging down to his eponymous shoulders it looks like he’s wearing a Davy Crockett hat. He’s accompanied by Grant D’Aubin, his bespectacled, moustachioed collaborator from his band the Okay Crawdad, who will provide harmonies and play stand-up bass for the rest of the night.

Nick picks up his acoustic guitar and begins his distinctive powerful strumming. Backed by Grant, he launches into his first number, ‘Lonely Like Me’. It’s one of his earliest released songs and a fan favourite, so naturally the crowd begins to sing along. Nick seems touched by the reception; at multiple points in the night he’ll mention that it’s a trip to come over to the other side of the Atlantic and hear his Arkansas yodelling songs sung back at him.

There’s a lot of positivity in the set, and Nick is not only thankful for his fans but is keen to spread the love: Grant D’Aubin, Gravedancer and Mike West all receive praise from his microphone tonight. At one point, he’ll even urge people to check out his uncle, the late Pat M. Riley, a classic crooner whose music can be found online. The infectious joy in Nick Shoulders’ outlook on life is evident in every whoop, whistle and odd sound; it’s in every catchy hook and yodelled lyric of his music, delivered in that unique high singing voice.

The second song is a cover of a Sixties song by Tom O’Neal, the foot-tapping ‘Blue Endless Highway’. It’s a catchy, up-tempo number with a great bass line and harmonies from Grant. At first, I think it’s an unreleased original that I mentally note as ‘Highway Patrol’ (after the lyric “lookin’ in the rear-view mirror for the highway patrol/The highway patrol”), but a Google search a few days later will correct me. Nick and Grant have combined well on it, and the only reason the crowd haven’t sung along as they have with ‘Lonely Like Me’ is because of its unfamiliarity. If it gets a studio recording, it might well prove another fan favourite.

It’s followed by another recent Nick and Grant collaboration, a cover of Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’ which they will soon be releasing on a new EP with The Lostines. It has some great harmonising, and the slower swing of its music is remedied by its follow-up, the hyperactive, oddball ‘Ding Dong Daddy’, which sees Nick whistle a solo and make uncanny trumpet sounds with his mouth.

We’re offered a hint of the future with a song that Nick announces will be coming out on his new record next year. He describes ‘All Bad’ as a bit of “toxic positivity for your Sunday” and dedicates it to “everybody in here who is just doing the best to hold the fuck on for dear life”. After three cover songs in a row, ‘All Bad’ is a great reminder of Nick’s growing stable of well-crafted original tunes. Behind the punk-like energy of his music, the oddball whistles and yodelling, and the positivity and personal charm, there’s an artist of serious calibre. After the shout-out to uncle Pat, there’s a rendition of the clever original ‘G for Jesus’, another song characterised by fantastic lyrics.

It’s been a great opening salvo from Nick, but due to the nature of the venue that fragile energy in the crowd remains. The energy is there, but it’s hard to find, and needs a watchful eye when found. Nick admits he’d been worried about singing tonight as he’d caught a cold in the unfamiliar climate – welcome, Nick Shoulders, to the north-west of England in November – but he’s in fine voice regardless. Nevertheless, there remains the danger that the energy might disperse, that entropy might be a factor tonight. Nick Shoulders on stage tonight is not so much rakehelly as rakehelly blue: raucous, but with a slight apprehension. I get a sense tonight that it all might collapse at any moment if the next song doesn’t hit right, or the few dozen people in the crowd move too far apart. The music’s been propulsive, but with a nervous fragility, like a freight train held together by loose bolts.

Many shoulders on display in this picture.

“There’s a spider hanging on the ceiling!” Nick shouts, laughing excitedly. It’s been less than a week since Halloween, and the pub hasn’t taken its decorations down. Hanging from a ceiling fan directly above the audience, there’s a giant toy spider spinning round and round. Tickled by the sight, it perhaps inspires Nick to launch into ‘Turn on the Dark’, which he introduces as a “haunted house song”. It’s a magnificent number – and tonight’s only representative from Home on the Rage, Nick’s most recent album. As Nick whistles and Grant performs a solo on his bass, the spider whizzes round and round and the crowd’s heads nod up and down.

Not for the first time, I marvel at how much sound can be made on stage by two slight men possessing only a guitar and a stand-up bass. But Nick Shoulders can get a goodly amount of sound out of an acoustic guitar; his powerful strumming has become almost a signature sound. Accompanied by his high and powerful voice, the amplification of these great songs is undeniable, influenza be damned. Hopefully the next time Nick Shoulders tours in the UK he’ll have become big enough to justify bringing the whole band, but even without them he can make plenty of glorious noise. ‘Turn on the Dark’ has banished any nervousness, an act of aural feng shui. The music’s becoming so good that I begin to doubt the fragility was even there at all, and was just a figment of my agoraphobic imagination.

One song that would have benefited from the full band experience is the next number, ‘Too Old to Dream’. The studio version has the most enthusiastic lead guitar since George Harrison on the Beatles’ first album, and Nick’s whistle solo tonight only goes so far to compensate. But it’s still a great song with strong bones, a highlight in a night that is increasingly becoming full of them.

“How many of you are NOT millionaires? Raise your hands,” Nick asks, introducing his next song. He’s mentioned in the past how he feels a connection to the earth back home in Arkansas, and asks if anyone knows about the history of “the fencing-in of the commons”. He gets blank stares from the crowd and responds, “you should look it up, it’s your history, by god”. He’s referring to enclosure, by which access to the free ancestral land of England was gradually whittled away over the centuries.

As a former history student and compulsive Googler, I’m probably the only one among the yeomen and rakehelly vagabonds tonight who’s keen enough to actually look it up, b’god. Even among a harmonious crowd of heavy metal, country and punk enthusiasts, an interest in the legislative history of progressive feudal land appropriation might be a tad ambitious from Nick. Those class battles are so old and obscure, and the landscape of the north-west changed so fundamentally by the Industrial Revolution, that many don’t even know there were battlefields here.

But there’s method in the madness, and Nick’s prompting sets up the next number. Introduced as “an old cowboy ballad that we totally fucked up”, ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ is an old Roy Rogers song that Nick has furnished with his own lyrics and context. It’s something that he’s done before to great effect, with both ‘Rise When the Rooster Crows’ and ‘New Dying Soldier’ (neither of which get an airing tonight), and ‘You Won’t Fence Us In’, Nick’s new hybrid traditional/original, is another success. It’s a credit to his craft and versatility, that something once sung by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra is not out of place as a protest song sung by an ex-punk rocker in 2022.

This resolute and affirming protest song is followed by one of the best moments of the night. I’ve always thought ‘After Hours’ would be a great bar-room song, particularly that rollicking sing-along ending, and so it proves tonight. As we approach what would traditionally be last orders in this pub tonight in Bolton, Nick leads the crowd in a boisterous rendition of this fan favourite. It’s hard to imagine a song getting a better reception, but then Nick begins the oddly doo-wop-style singing that opens ‘Snakes and Waterfalls’, and the familiar notes get a similar reception.

It’s followed by ‘Bound and Determined’, which Nick says was inspired by the fact he’s always “troubled by authority”, and the song’s an emphatic conclusion to tonight’s protest element (which was kindled by Mike West’s ‘Guillotine’ song and brought to flame by ‘You Won’t Fence Us In’). It’s another great example of Nick’s intelligent and catchy songwriting, and there are at least half a dozen other songs of his that would have received a good reception tonight, if we had time.

It’s time for tonight’s closer, and there’s one song that is unavoidable. Nick Shoulders might die where he stands if he hears ‘Wagon Wheel’ again, but I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing ‘Rather Low’. Nick holds the opening “welllllll” for a long time – his head-cold now well and truly over, no doubt because of adrenaline rather than Lemsip – before launching into his signature song. He encourages the audience to “sing along if you know it” and everyone does know it. He’s saved the best till last, which is quite a thing to say when the set’s been filled with so many catchy numbers that people have been singing along since the opener.

As the crowd cheers and applauds at the end, Nick whoops into the microphone. I’ve previously described Nick Shoulders as seemingly nuttier than a shaken sack of squirrels, and even before a small crowd and nursing a cold on a cold night in England far from home, he’s delivered a propulsive, versatile set filled with whistles, yodels and a big fur hat. Earlier in the night, he introduced a song by saying it was a “mental health check” for us, and at no point had it occurred to me that this was an oddly sane thing to hear from a guy who’d been making trumpet noises with his mouth. Perhaps Gravedancer, recalling the sober reception of the ‘Mr. Blobby’ song, would appreciate how the abnormal and ridiculous has seemed normal among tonight’s crowd of Shoulderheads.

At the end of the night, I go outside and lean against the wall to make a phone call. I notice movement in my peripheral vision; behind me, Nick Shoulders is inside, collecting his jacket and his various pocket shrapnel from the cordoned-off area of the pub. I doubt he’ll remember this show – the smallest on the tour – but Mike West was right: there won’t be many more dates like this in Nick’s future. If the crowd isn’t twice as large next time round, there’s no justice in the world. This whooping, mulleted yodeller is building a devoted fanbase and backing it up with quality tunes. His fame’s growing rapidly, though it probably doesn’t seem like it to him as he packs up and leaves the small northern pub. But the night is special because it might never be like this again. I find myself hoping Nick might look back fondly on playing for a handful of drunk English misfits (and one very dizzy toy spider); I’ll certainly look back fondly on being one of them.

My lift arrives, and I’m gone, taking the A666. Take me home, Bolton Road.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Okay, Crawdad and written by Nick Shoulders, unless noted)

  1. Lonely Like Me (from Lonely Like Me)
  2. Blue Endless Highway (J. R. Cheatham) (unreleased)
  3. Heart of Glass (Debbie Harry/Chris Stein) (from Heart of Night)
  4. Ding Dong Daddy (Traditional)
  5. All Bad (unreleased)
  6. G for Jesus
  7. Turn on the Dark (from Home on the Rage)
  8. Too Old to Dream
  9. You Won’t Fence Us In (based on ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ (Cole Porter/Bob Fletcher)) (unreleased)
  10. After Hours (from Lonely Like Me)
  11. Snakes and Waterfalls (from Lonely Like Me)
  12. Bound and Determined
  13. Rather Low

The Possessed Jukebox: Charley Crockett Live on Halloween

November 2, 2022 /

Monday 31st October 2022

The Deaf Institute, Manchester, England

It starts without much in the way of preamble; the band first, the Blue Drifters, come on to cheers and the background stereo of Ennio Morricone’s ‘For a Few Dollars More’. The spaghetti western theme is quickly replaced by Crockett’s own, played by the band as they settle in: the short ‘The Man from Waco Theme’ opening the show. The cheers turn to roars as Charley Crockett himself takes the stage.

Dressed in pale grey jeans and a white jacket – and the obligatory cowboy hat – Crockett quickly launches into ‘Cowboy Candy’, the first song from the new album. Before we pause for breath, we’re into ‘Time of the Cottonwood Trees’, another new song, one written for his girlfriend Taylor Grace.

This is followed by ‘Just Like Honey’ and ‘Black Sedan’, two more new tunes, though catchier than the two that preceded it. Not only are all the songs so far from the latest album, but astute fans will also notice they’re in roughly the same sequencing as the grooves already struck into vinyl. A moment of doubt crosses my mind: are we just going to run through all the numbers, however enthusiastically, with no thought to making the night special? The rest of the crowd doesn’t seem to share my doubt: the titular ‘The Man from Waco’ is next up, to a great reception.

There’s good reason for the frantic pace tonight. It’s Halloween, and there’s a strict 10 p.m. curfew at tonight’s venue – The Deaf Institute in Manchester – apparently to make way for another event. It’s not very rock ‘n’ roll, but we’re country tonight anyway. Crockett and the band deliver an old Tom T. Hall song, ‘Lonely in Person’, before another number from the new album, the slower-paced ‘Odessa’. But for all the solid musicianship on display and the enthusiasm of the crowd, my earlier doubts haven’t gone away. We’ve been burning through the numbers, like a jukebox has grabbed ahold of Crockett’s newest album and set it spinning. The next song is ‘Jukebox Charley’, as though to confirm me in this view.

Fortunately, I’ll soon be proved wrong. On this Halloween night, as the rain beats the roof, the jukebox is soon to become possessed.

‘Music City USA’ is up next, followed by a fan favourite, the autobiographical ‘The Valley’. The latter is the oldest original played so far, coming from the 2019 album of the same name. It seems strange to think of ‘The Valley’ as an old song, but so prolific is Charley Crockett as an artist that the song’s delivery tonight brings a more well-worn groove from the band, something not always possible on the newer songs. Most of tonight’s songs weren’t even released when I booked my ticket: Crockett has released two full albums of material since the day I set my card down in April. Even the venue’s website can’t keep up with the man: its biographical spiel is three albums old.

Crockett’s work ethic is something to be marvelled at, but there’s also a risk in it. Not only is it hard to keep up, it’s hard to savour. I’d only listened to The Man from Waco a few times before I showed up at the Deaf Institute tonight, so when the chords of those new songs are first struck by the band, there’s less of the delight and anticipation with which the crowd meets a more established number, as we’ve already seen with ‘The Valley’.

There are a lot of songs to be heard tonight; not counting the thirty-second ‘The Man from Waco Theme’ which opens the show, Charley Crockett and the Blue Drifters will run through a total of 27. With the support act, Theo Lawrence, also doing 14 tunes before Crockett takes the stage, it’s a prodigious amount of music for two-and-a-half hours. It seems Theo was even planning more: he gestures off-stage for one more at the end of his opening set, only to be denied. That 10pm curfew must be met. I find myself wondering what the final number would have been: the young Frenchman has delivered his own impressive set of original songs (as well as the Porter and Dolly crowd-pleaser ‘The Last Thing on My Mind’), characterised by strong writing and a throwback croon. Looking like a long-lost third Everly Brother who’s stepped through a wormhole into 2022, he stood solo behind his guitar and did a great job of warming up the crowd. At one point he says he’s usually backed by a rock ‘n’ roll band, and such is the strength of his set that he may well be one to watch in future. Throughout the night, Crockett is full of praise for his band the Blue Drifters, but he also makes sure to remind the audience to check out Theo Lawrence. It’s not an idle recommendation.

Crockett, meanwhile, is soon to bring that crowd to boil. After ‘The Valley’, he launches into three James Hand songs from the 10 for Slim cover album: ‘Midnight Run’, ‘Lesson in Depression’ and ‘Don’t Tell Me That’. The slick Fifties rock ‘n’ roll energy given to these three Hand numbers mean they’re perhaps the most crucial part of the night for Crockett. From here on out, Mr. Jukebox becomes a man possessed. He reaches that sweet spot he’s been searching for with the frantic pace all night: that blissful moment in a night of live music when energy turns into momentum.

‘Borrowed Time’, a song co-written with Evan Felker of the Turnpike Troubadours, is next, and its energy is maintained even in the slower swing of the following song, ‘I Need Your Love’. When the next song strikes up, it gets one of those roars of recognition from the crowd: ‘Welcome to Hard Times’, from the album of the same name. By this point, both band and audience have found the night’s groove, and the number is a high point of the night. When it’s followed up by ‘Name on a Billboard’, another from The Man from Waco album, the new song shares the familiarity of the songs around it, rather than the jukebox delivery from earlier in the show. The night is becoming special.

The next song, ‘Jamestown Ferry’, is a special moment. The fan favourite is given a warm, singalong welcome and is enlivened by a surprise trumpet solo from Blue Drifter Kullen Fox. It’s a great reminder of how Charley and his band seamlessly incorporate other American sounds into their country music, a fact then confirmed by their bluesy cover of ‘I Feel for You’. Reportedly Matthew McConaughey’s favourite Charley Crockett song, it sees Charley without his guitar as he takes the microphone from the stand. Pressing his bejewelled hand against the silver phoenix hanging around his neck, he delivers the slick lines of Jerry Reed.

The growing confidence and looseness of the night is becoming apparent, and we stray a bit further from the well-honed country sound with the Sixties groove of ‘Travelin’ Blues’, before snapping right back with the folksy ‘Lilly My Dear’. Sounding like a traditional song unearthed from the dirt, ‘Lilly’ is in fact an original co-written with fellow Texan artist Vincent Neil Emerson. It’s the second song from Welcome to Hard Times performed on the night – and it’ll be the last. To my disappointment, there are no more songs from my favourite Charley Crockett album. At the very least, it seems like a missed opportunity to not play ‘Rainin’ in My Heart’ when in Manchester (of course, it’s raining outside). But Charley’s stable of strong tunes has grown so fast that it’d be impossible to play everyone’s favourite. The frantic delivery of such catchy songs tonight reveals a hidden truth: the music might seem disposable at first, until you realise you can’t bear to throw it away.

The banjo which Charley donned for ‘Lilly My Dear’ serves well on the next number, the quick tempo of ‘Round This World’. The lyrics speak of a “banjo-pickin’ man”, but it’s the electric guitar of Blue Drifter Alexis Sanchez which steals the song. The Blue Drifter provides a tasty Tex-Mex solo which takes the song to another place, and he’s certainly a bigger hit than the last Alexis Sanchez to rock up in Manchester. ‘Round This World’ is a raucous number, and the perfect lead-in to what will prove the finest moment of the night.

The band continues the beat between songs and then, to another anticipatory roar from the crowd, Kullen Fox begins the mariachi horn riff that announces ‘Trinity River’. ‘Trinity River’ is a jewel stolen from Charley’s first album and re-recorded for The Man from Waco, but neither version is as good as the one performed tonight. It’s the perfect number to play live and puts the night at fever-pitch: Charley in his groove, the crowd enrapt, and the Blue Drifters able to show their musical dexterity in moving from country to blues to Tejano and Louisiana soul. It’s Charley embracing the ‘Gulf’ part of his distinctive ‘Gulf and Western’ sound: ‘Trinity River’ might not be country, but it’s got so much soul you want to tell the purists to go hang.

Charley revels in this new soulful groove, following up with ‘I’m Just a Clown’. This new tune is arguably out of place among the country songs on The Man from Waco, but with its Bill Withers-style vibe it’s perfect for where Charley’s found himself at this late point in the night. The momentum is carrying us all now, and while Charley’s enough of a professional to thank Manchester for coming out, it’s Texas where his heart is. In the final number, ‘Goin’ Back to Texas’, he’s the consummate showman. The music’s as good as it’s been all night and Charley’s dancing; foot-stepping carefully across the small stage, twirling in place and going down low to move spaghetti-legged before the front row of the crowd. The fierce, soulful end to the show proves the jukebox was never broken, not even in that slow, steady sequence of The Man from Waco numbers at the start of the night. Charley Crockett’s played it perfectly.

He leaves the stage with his band to cheers, cheers which continue so passionately that an encore is unavoidable. Charley returns alone, behind his guitar, to sing one of his new pure country songs, ‘July Jackson’. The band also deserves an encore, and they return for the Seventies soul vibes of another original, ‘In the Night’.

It’s been a heady, breathless sequence of music from Charley and his band. It’s been far removed from my previous concert experience, the mesmeric aural spellcasting of Sierra Ferrell in Liverpool, but Charley’s hard-and-fast approach has provided an experience no less memorable.

“I’m Charley Crockett – that’s Charley with an ‘E-Y'”, he says before he leaves the stage, an honest hustler to the end. But the hustle would be for nothing if the music didn’t back it up. And it does, emphatically: tonight has been a potent cocktail of showmanship and musicianship. The merchandise table is busy as the room empties; it’s where the real tour money is made, and why the showman is an important part of the artist. But it’s the music that proves most memorable. As I leave, I hear someone humming that horn riff from ‘Trinity River’. The jukebox’s possession is spreading, out into the Halloween night.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album The Man from Waco and written by Charley Crockett, unless noted)

  1. The Man from Waco Theme (Crockett/Kullen Fox)
  2. Cowboy Candy
  3. Time of the Cottonwood Trees
  4. Just Like Honey (Crockett/Fox)
  5. Black Sedan (Crockett/Fox)
  6. The Man from Waco (Crockett/Fox/Taylor Grace/Bruce Robison)
  7. Lonely in Person (Tom T. Hall) (from Lil G.L. Presents Jukebox Charley)
  8. Odessa (Crockett/Nathan Fleming)
  9. Jukebox Charley (Johnny Paycheck/Aubrey Mayhew) (from Jukebox Charley)
  10. Music City USA (Crockett/Mark Neill) (from Music City USA)
  11. The Valley (from The Valley)
  12. Midnight Run (James Hand) (from 10 for Slim)
  13. Lesson in Depression (Hand) (from 10 for Slim)
  14. Don’t Tell Me That (Hand) (from 10 for Slim)
  15. Borrowed Time (Crockett/Evan Felker) (from The Valley)
  16. I Need Your Love (Crockett/Neill) (from Music City USA)
  17. Welcome to Hard Times (from Welcome to Hard Times)
  18. Name on a Billboard
  19. Jamestown Ferry (Mack Vickery/Bobby Borchers) (from Lil G.L.’s Honky Tonk Jubilee)
  20. I Feel for You (Jerry Reed) (from Jukebox Charley)
  21. Travelin’ Blues (Eddy Owens) (from Lil G.L.’s Blue Bonanza)
  22. Lilly My Dear (Crockett/Vincent Neil Emerson/Colin Colby/Tyler Heiser) (from Welcome to Hard Times)
  23. Round This World (from Music City USA)
  24. Trinity River*
  25. I’m Just a Clown
  26. Goin’ Back to Texas (from Lonesome as a Shadow)
  27. Encore: July Jackson (Crockett/Grace)
  28. Encore: In the Night (from In the Night)

* ‘Trinity River’ is from The Man from Waco but was originally recorded on 2015’s A Stolen Jewel

A Pretty Magic Spell: Listening to Sierra Ferrell Live

June 30, 2022 /

Monday 27th June 2022

Future Yard, Birkenhead, England

It is hard to write about music because it is an elemental thing. Even among artists and other creative types, musicians occupy a special sphere. There is a line attributed to Walter Pater that all art aspires to the condition of music, and even an ordinary musician can, with a few strums of a guitar and some simple lyrics, bring forth the harmony that is in the world much more effectively than a great writer. Certainly, writing about music often ends up destroying the magic in it, turning the experience of sung gold into mute and lumpen lead.

“My hands are little, but they’re strong,” Sierra Ferrell says at one point on Monday night, in between songs, and on that stage those small, dainty hands touched upon the casual magic that music has but which is much harder to find in other art forms. She is certainly no ordinary musician. To hear Miss Sierra sing for the first time is an experience, whether on an album or a video online. To listen to her live is to witness one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World (others include the Empire State Building, the International Space Station, and how Pete Davidson is attractive to women). It is hard to describe her voice, not only because of the problem of writing successfully about music, but because its qualities shapeshift elusively as you hear it. To describe it as earthy misrepresents its femininity; to describe it as tender or melodious undersells its power. It is note-perfect, and yet with a ruggedness that stays true to Sierra’s West Virginian roots. It is like an angel who has decided to no longer serve, but has not turned away from the light either, and instead chooses to sing according to what it feels truly shines.

I have travelled the thirty-five miles from Manchester to Liverpool precisely to experience this wonder, and the show does not disappoint. In the last couple of years I’ve become a fan of this new country scene – much to my own surprise – and the old iPod I’ve loaded up for the car journey is full of Sierra’s music, mixed with Nick Shoulders, Colter Wall, Charley Crockett and Tyler Childers, among others. The first song on shuffle as I pull away from home is ‘Silver Dollar’, and whether by coincidence or kismet, it’s the first song Sierra plays after I arrive at the packed, dark Future Yard in Birkenhead. After a strong opening act by Josh Beddis, filled with slow songs and including a rolling closer called ‘The River’ – “sinners, won’t you find your way back home” –plenty of goodwill has been generated in the crowd by the Welsh picker’s genial stage presence. The atmosphere is further enhanced when Sierra arrives on stage and throws what appears to be confetti or petals into the crowd. They don’t reach beyond the first row, but unless she deployed a t-shirt cannon they wouldn’t have found me anyway. I’m standing at the very back of the room, near the bar, though I’m not drinking tonight (I’m driving home after the show). If I was any more of a wallflower, I’d be singing ‘Sixth Avenue Heartache’.

The venue, the Future Yard, is the perfect size for the performance that Sierra and her band – Oliver Bates Craven on mandolin and fiddle and Geoff Saunders on stand-up bass – are about to deliver. It is large enough to generate an atmosphere but small enough to emphasise the power in the songs, whether that’s the tender intimacy of ‘Whispering Waltz’ or the raucous energy Sierra finds in ‘Fox Hunt’ or ‘I’d Do it Again’.

On stage, Sierra places her small frame behind her acoustic guitar. She has a crown of flowers sown into her wheat-gold hair – a striking array of pinks and reds and oranges and yellows. She looks like she has stepped out of an Alphonse Mucha painting. And when she begins to sing, the effect becomes otherworldly. Her body sways as she sings and strums on her guitar, and she won’t break the spell she has over the room for the rest of the night.

The opening ‘Silver Dollar’ is followed by ‘Give it Time’, with Oliver and Geoff harmonising on the chorus to give it a throwback bluegrass feel. It’s a sign that, for all of Sierra’s unique ability, she is also supported by formidably talented friends. The third song, ‘Why’d Ya Do It?’, features some great fiddle from Oliver; the first sign that while the crowd may miss the incredible Josie Toney – Sierra’s regular fiddle player who, for whatever reason, has not travelled for the UK tour – they need not mourn her on the night.

The performance reaches another level with the fourth song, ‘Bells of Every Chapel’. Sierra introduces it in her tender Southern accent, saying it was inspired by watching the Netflix show The Crown with a friend. It’s a reminder that she hasn’t stepped out of one of Mucha’s art nouveau paintings, or a Roaring Twenties honky-tonk, but exists in the here and now. The song was co-written by Oliver Bates Craven and he leaves another mark on it with a mandolin solo. Not to be outdone, Geoff Saunders delivers a solo on his stand-up bass. Solos from both artists will become a regular and welcome feature of tonight’s set. A high note at the end of this song, held by Sierra for a long time, gets the crowd whooping. The trio on stage will maintain this level for the rest of the night.

A release is provided by the slow and intimate ‘Whispering Waltz’, showcasing Sierra’s vocals on a night when that could be said about every song that’s heard. It is followed by a reprise of ‘Silver Dollar’ – a surprise, particularly as there later proves to be no place on the setlist for ‘In Dreams’, another signature song. The seventh song of the night is the lesser-spotted ‘Littlebird’, from the 2018 album Pretty Magic Spell. Its warm reception from the crowd returns an almost shy thank-you from the artist, as though Sierra is surprised that people respond to her music.

As though to shake off this bout of shyness, Sierra and her band launch into the best song on the night, the as-yet-unreleased ‘I’d Do it Again’. She plays up the cuteness of the lyrics, selling it with a wink here and there, and displays great control of her voice as she hits all the right beats without pausing for breath. Even after solos from each of the three players – including a brief one from Sierra’s acoustic guitar – I’m still surprised when the song, which in its versions online has a charming Cole Porter vibe, reaches a raucous end that gets the crowd going again. Sierra roaring “I’d do it again – three times!”, refusing to let the song end, shows how the versatility in her vocals is matched by the flexibility in her songwriting. ‘I’d Do it Again’ was the most unexpected performance of the night.

Matching the earlier effect of following ‘Bells of Every Chapel’ with ‘Whispering Waltz’, Sierra changes pace after the frenetic end to ‘I’d Do it Again’ by singing the sweet and accepting ‘Made Like That’, followed by ‘Lonesome Feeling’, an Osborne Brothers song introduced as an “old bluegrass number”. Talk of West Virginia in between songs leads to an apparently impromptu rendition of John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’. Seemingly suggested by someone in the front row, the audience is only too happy to sing along.

Sierra is not yet ready to leave her home state, and begins to sing ‘West Virginia Waltz’. It is another impressive vocal, holding a long note on the word ‘flame’ as the song builds. Her voice proves the strongest even when harmonising with two men, though for the next song Sierra stands alone on stage. She plays ‘Rosemary’ from her 2019 album Washington by the Sea, a murder ballad that is intriguingly followed by the unreleased ‘Fox Hunt’. Sierra plays fiddle on this song, with Oliver also on fiddle and Geoff switching to acoustic guitar. This was the song I anticipated most before the show, with the versions I had seen online finally convincing me that I had to see Sierra live. I don’t expect the new verse she delivers, which suggests that this crowd-pleasing foot-stomper may also morph into something of a murder ballad or outlaw song itself. It’ll be interesting to see what its final form will be when it’s finally cut for an album, but, as Sierra says when the song is finished, “don’t ask me when that is”. It will be quite a task to replicate the live energy of this song in the studio.

Sierra follows up ‘Fox Hunt’ with two other unreleased numbers, ‘Lighthouse’ and ‘Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down’. The three musicians harmonise on one mic for ‘Lighthouse’, and the song hints that Sierra is far from finished in building her stable of quality tunes. Despite the relative unfamiliarity of these two numbers, she still has the crowd in the palm of her hand and has them waving their arms in an arc during the chorus of the next song, the hopeful ‘At the End of the Rainbow’.

The sight of swaying arms also proves appropriate to summon the next number, ‘The Sea’. Though Sierra has returned to a familiar song here, she still has a surprise or two in store. ‘The Sea’ starts as expected, a slow, jazzy piece, but then gets unexpectedly high-tempo. Oliver and Geoff perform some now-signature mandolin and bass soloes to complement the song’s new swift current.

The band and the room are still full of energy, but we’ve reached the last song of the night. Sierra launches into ‘Jeremiah’, and the song seems all the sweeter for knowing it is the last. Another welcome surprise of the night: Miss Sierra begins to howl like a wolf on the final verse of the song, much to the delight of the crowd. Perhaps she’s been spending too much time with Nick Shoulders, her yodelling and whistling sometime-tourmate who seems nuttier than a shaken sack of squirrels.

Sierra and the band leave the stage, bowing to the cheers and the applause of the crowd, before returning for a brief encore. “You guys like honky-tonk?” Geoff says, before they sing the old bar-room song ‘Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)’. As a nod to the British audience, a line is changed to “that pub down the street”. It can sometimes feel like country fans from outside West Virginia or Texas or the Bluegrass State, particularly those in other countries, are excluded in the name of protecting the genre’s authenticity, but the music never sounded as natural in England as it did tonight. The spell cast is complete.

It is unlikely that Sierra or the band will remember this night. Pretty soon they’re travelling on to London, and then Europe, and there’ll be stages and festivals and honky-tonks aplenty when they head back home to the States. If there remains any natural justice in art today, Sierra Ferrell will be in high demand. She proved tonight, if it needed to be proved, that she can do it all. The high notes and the low, the raucous songs and the tender ones. The voice is the thing that alters you when you hear it, but what is clear throughout the night is that the songcraft is also strong. Old favourites and new soon-to-be-favourites have been played, and ‘The Sea’ and ‘I’d Do it Again’ in particular have changed form without being diminished. It requires a feat of musicianship to bring all this together. It’s most noticeable, of course, in the stand-out moments – the high held notes of Sierra’s singing, the solos from Oliver and Geoff – but also in the night’s smaller moments – the light touches on Oliver’s mandolin, the backbeat of Geoff’s bass, the inflections in Sierra’s voice as it rolls over certain lyrics.

It’s these small moments that return to me after I leave the venue and start the late-night drive back to Manchester. I missed an opportunity to have a photo taken after the show – Sierra and her band mingled with fans at the bar – as it seemed awkward to stick around when I was alone and could not drink due to the need to drive home. I remained a wallflower to the end. But I clutch a black Sierra Ferrell t-shirt with ‘the bee’s knees’ on it, and smile. It seems absurd to purchase a memento when the night itself has been unforgettable, and perhaps it was the final symptom of the spell Miss Sierra had cast. I remember a song from earlier in the night. “Little bird,” she had sung. “Now won’t you sing to me. I know you’ll sing for free. I’m right where I wanna be.” I don’t expect her to sing for free, but on Monday night in Liverpool I was right where I wanted to be.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Long Time Coming and written by Sierra Ferrell, unless noted)

  1. Silver Dollar (Ferrell/Nate Leath)
  2. Give it Time
  3. Why’d Ya Do It?
  4. Bells of Every Chapel (Ferrell/Oliver Bates Craven)
  5. Whispering Waltz (Ferrell/Craven)
  6. Silver Dollar (reprise) (Ferrell/Leath)
  7. Littlebird (from Pretty Magic Spell)
  8. I’d Do it Again (unreleased)
  9. Made Like That
  10. Lonesome Feeling (Billy Henson) (unreleased)
  11. Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver/Bill Danoff/Taffy Nivert) (unreleased)
  12. West Virginia Waltz (Ferrell/Leath)
  13. Rosemary (from Washington by the Sea)
  14. Fox Hunt (unreleased)
  15. Lighthouse (unreleased)
  16. Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down (Traditional) (unreleased)
  17. At the End of the Rainbow (Ferrell/Leath)
  18. The Sea
  19. Jeremiah
  20. Encore: Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music) (Joe Maphis/Rose Lee Maphis/Max Fidler) (unreleased)

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