Tag: concert review (Page 2 of 3)

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

September 3, 2024 / Mike

Tuesday 27th August 2024

Gullivers, Manchester, England

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setlist #1 (Kassi Valazza):

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

Birds Fly High (unreleased)
Room in the City
Rapture
Johnny Dear (from Dear Dead Days)
Watching Planes Go By
Canyon Lines
Song for a Season
Roll On (unreleased)
Welcome Song
Weight of the Wheel (unreleased)
Wildageeses (Michael Hurley)
Chino (from Dear Dead Days)

Setlist #2 (Vincent Neil Emerson):

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

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

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

One of These Days: Kassi Valazza Live in York

August 29, 2024 / Mike

Sunday 25th August 2024

Bluebird Bakery, York, England

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setlist:

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

Birds Fly High (unreleased)
Room in the City
Rapture
Johnny Dear (from Dear Dead Days)
Watching Planes Go By
Canyon Lines
Song for a Season
Roll On (unreleased)
Welcome Song
Early Morning Rising (single)
Weight of the Wheel (unreleased)
Wildageeses (Michael Hurley)
Chino (from Dear Dead Days)
Encore: One of These Days (Neil Young) (unreleased)

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

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

August 24, 2024 / Mike

Wednesday 21st August 2024

O2 Ritz, Manchester, England

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setlist:

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

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

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

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

June 7, 2024 / Mike

Tuesday 28th May 2024

New Century Hall, Manchester, England

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setlist:

(all songs written by Isaac Gibson, unless noted)

Chemistry (from III)
Hays, Kansas (from III)
All I Need (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
Yearnin’ for You (Gibson/Matt Koziol) (from Leavin’ This Holler)
Leavin’ This Holler (Gibson/Stewart Myers) (from Leavin’ This Holler)
Fortune Favors the Bold (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
It’s a Shame (from III)
Everlasting Lover (from III)
Long Hard Life (from III)
So Damn Sweet (from The Wind)
Russell County Line (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
Annabel (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
Damn Darlin’ (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
Make it Count (Gibson/Myers) (from Leavin’ This Holler)
Second Chance (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
Don’t Speak (from The Wind)
Tulsa (Gibson/Myers) (from Leavin’ This Holler)
Last Call (from Fortune Favors the Bold)
Encore: Hillbilly Happy (from Leavin’ This Holler)

Tyler Childers vs. the Philistines: Live in Manchester

February 26, 2024 / Mike

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.

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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)

Honky Tonk Flame (from Purgatory)
Way of the Triune God (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
Percheron Mules (from Rustin’ in the Rain)
Born Again (from Purgatory)
In Your Love (Childers/Geno Seale) (from Rustin’ in the Rain)
Country Squire (from Country Squire)
Bus Route (from Country Squire)
Deadman’s Curve (from Live on Red Barn Radio)
Trudy (Charlie Daniels) (unreleased)
All Your’n (from Country Squire)
Matthew (from Country Squire)
Shake the Frost (from Live on Red Barn Radio)
Nose on the Grindstone (unreleased)
Lady May (from Purgatory)
Help Me Make it Through the Night (Kris Kristofferson) (from Rustin’ in the Rain)
Whitehouse Road (from Purgatory)
Old Country Church (J. W. Vaughn) (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
Two Coats (Traditional) (from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?)
Tulsa Turnaround (Alex Harvey/Larry Collins) (unreleased)
House Fire (from Country Squire)
Universal Sound (from Purgatory)
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 / Mike

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.

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)

Rich Men North of Richmond
Cobwebs and Cocaine
Virginia
Always Love You (Like a Good Ole Dog)
I’ve Got to Get Sober
90 Some Chevy
Ain’t Gotta Dollar
Doggonit
I Want to Go Home
Simple Man (Gary Rossington/Ronnie Van Zant) (unreleased)
Between You & Me
Rocket Man (Elton John/Bernie Taupin) (unreleased)
Rich Men North of Richmond (reprise)
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 / Mike

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.

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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.

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’)

Dust in a Baggie (William Apostol) (from Billy Strings EP)
Love Me Darlin’, Just Tonight (Red Malone/Carter Stanley) (unreleased)
Show Me the Door (Jarrod Walker/Christian Ward) (from Renewal)
Bronzeback (Apostol) (unreleased)
I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages (John Preston) (from Rock of Ages)
She Makes My Love Come Rolling Down (Eric Von Schmidt) (unreleased)
Thunder (Robert Hunter) (unreleased)
Heartbeat of America (Apostol/Aaron Allen) (from Renewal)
California Sober (Apostol/Allen/Jon Weisberger) (single) [End of Set #1]
Big Sandy River (Tommy Jackson) (unreleased)
A Letter to Seymour (Dave Bruzza) (unreleased)
Long Forgotten Dream (Apostol) (from Home)
Hellbender (Apostol/Allen/Weisberger) (from Renewal)
Enough to Leave (Apostol) (from Home)
Everything’s the Same (Apostol/Walker) (from Home)
Letter Edged in Black (Hattie Nevada) (unreleased)
Hide and Seek (Apostol/Walker/Billy Failing/Royal Masat) (from Renewal)
And Your Bird Can Sing (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) (unreleased)
Hide and Seek (reprise)
The Old Man at the Mill (Clarence Ashley) (unreleased)
Clinch Mountain Backstep (Stanley) (unreleased)
Freeborn Man (Keith Allison/Mark Lindsay) (unreleased)
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 / Mike

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.

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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)

Birds Fly High* (unreleased)
Room in the City
Rapture
Johnny Dear (from Dear Dead Days)
Watching Planes Go By
Long Way from Home (I’ll Ride You Down)
Light Green Fellow (Michael Hurley) (unreleased)
Chino (from Dear Dead Days)
Song for a Season
From Newman St. (Higher and Higher)* (unreleased)
Roll On* (unreleased)
Welcome Song
Early Morning Rising (single)
Weight of the Wheel* (unreleased)
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 / Mike

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.)

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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, Jacob Marchese 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 Jacob Marchese’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)

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

Molten Country Gold: Mike and the Moonpies Live in Manchester

April 8, 2023 / Mike

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)

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

Tag: concert review (Page 2 of 3)

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Tyler Childers vs. the Philistines: Live in Manchester

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

On the Strings of Strings: Billy Strings Live in Manchester

Rapture at St. Lawrence’s: Kassi Valazza Live

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

Molten Country Gold: Mike and the Moonpies Live in Manchester

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