Jason Boland & the Stragglers Thrill Argenta Vibe Music Series Crowd on Sweltering Summer Night8/26/2023 by Julian Spivey Jason Boland & the Stragglers brought their brand of red dirt country music back to Little Rock, Ark. on Friday, August 25 for the group’s debut at the Argenta Vibe Music Series at the Argenta Plaza in the middle of downtown. The Argenta Vibe Music Series brings free live music to the public on the last Friday of every month from April through October (with the exception of July due to heat). Well, heat was certainly still an issue in late August with a temperature of 93 degrees and a “feels like” temperature of 101 degrees at the time of the 8 p.m. show. I’m sure the heat kept some folks from attending, but the plaza was reasonably busy despite the excessive heat warning. Boland and the Stragglers began their set with “The Light Saw Me,” the title track from the group’s most recent album from late 2021, about a fictional UFO spotting. They would segue immediately into “Hank,” a song about the “carbon copy” music of Nashville that’s sure to get a raucous response from any crowd wanting the real thing. Boland is really good at mixing fan favorites with some deeper cuts throughout his sets and I was thankful to hear “Mary Ellen’s Greenhouse” off 2011’s Rancho Alto, which was the first Boland and the Stragglers album I familiarized myself with thanks to a local radio station that would play stuff out of the country music mainstream (and unfortunately didn’t last long). The band would later play “Fences,” off the same album, a tune about America’s not-so-terrific relationship with Native Americans. Another deep cut was the cover of Van Morrison’s “Bulbs,” which the band recorded for its 2018 album Hard Times Are Relative. It’s not one of Morrison’s most well-known songs, so I’ve always wondered what sort of meaning it holds for Boland. Hopefully one day I’ll get the chance to ask him. I was also thrilled to hear “I Don’t Deserve You,” a catchy love song that’s one of my favorite tracks on Hard Times Are Relative. Boland and the band always give their all on stage – and I should know I’ve seen this act more than any other in my lifetime (probably nearing double digits) – but the fact that the sweltering heat didn’t seem to take anything out of them other than the buckets of sweat you could see dripping off them from the front barricade just gave me even more respect for them as a live act. The band, of course, played many of the tunes that they always break out live in concert to the enraptured enjoyment of the long-time fans – many of which made it out to the show and you could kind of tell the difference between those who knew Boland’s music and those just looking for a good time out on a Friday night for free music (the fans were upfront, the newbies in the back in lawn chairs). Among the Boland “classics” were “Pearl Snaps,” “Gallo del Cielo,” “When I’m Stoned” and “Telephone Romeo.” One of my all-time favorite Boland songs is “Somewhere Down in Texas,” which I’d probably have listed in my top 200 country songs of all time despite the fact many outside of the red dirt country world likely wouldn’t even know it. It’s probably the quintessential Stragglers song to see live. Shouting the line about “Valentino in his cut-off pair of jeans” with other fans of the band is always a “this is why we go to live shows” moment for me. Boland and the band performed a couple of new songs that have me greatly anticipating the group’s next album – hopefully coming soon. The songs, possibly titled “Next to Last Hank Williams” and “Truest Colors,” have that classic Stragglers sound. The band didn’t leave the stage and do the whole beg-for-applause thing before coming back to do an encore – no, it was far too hot and sweaty for that on Friday night. Instead, they went right into their three-song encore that began with the ballad “Proud Soul” from the group’s 1999 debut Pearl Snaps. Boland then told the crowd that his mother’s side of the family comes from the Marshall, Ark. area just about two hours up the road and about the tornado around those parts that inspired “Blowing Through the Hills,” one of the band’s most rocking tunes, before burning through a fantastic performance of it. It’s always one of my favorite Boland songs to see live. The group finished the night with what I think has become my all-time favorite concert closer in “Outlaw Band,” a song penned by Bob Childers, one of “their mentor’s past” as Boland says on the 2010 live album High in the Rockies. I love the tale of a group of loners banding together to form a band, but what really makes the song is the fiddle and mandolin playing, which was done live Friday night by the band’s current multi-instrumentalist Nick Gedra, who really showed off all night long. The whole current outfit of the Stragglers is truly talented, but so has every formation of the band I’ve ever seen, and the band seems to change a lot other than Boland at the front and bassist Grant Tracy, the only remaining originals. A.J. Slaughter on pedal steel and electric guitar, Jake Lynn on drums and Andrew Bair on keys have all been really nice additions to the band. I saw the band perform an acoustic show at the Revolution Room in Little Rock early in the year and it was a fantastic treat getting to see them in that aspect having never seen it before, but plugged in and rocking is truly the Stragglers in their natural form. Everything was hot on Friday night from the outrageous temps to the incredible talent of the entire band and it made for no better way to begin a weekend. The Argenta Vibe Music Series has two more shows in 2023. The Pine Leaf Boys, a Grammy-nominated Cajun and Creole band from south Louisiana, will perform on Friday, September 22 and The Cleverlys, a bluegrass and comedy group that has been a big hit in Branson, will end the series for the year on Friday, October 27.
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by Julian Spivey Have you ever gone to a concert where you completely enjoyed the live performances but left the venue at the end feeling a bit off-put by the whole experience? Maybe I pay a little too much attention to my surroundings at concerts, but this was how I felt when I was walking back to the parking lot at the end of Eric Church’s The Outsiders Revival Tour show at the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion in Rogers, Ark. on Thursday, July 27.
Church and his openers – Midland and Ray Wylie Hubbard – all put on terrific sets that I enjoyed quite a bit, but in general I was upset by the audience at the venue from the very beginning of the evening for the sheer reason that they were largely disrespectful as hell toward the openers. Now, normally I’d start my concert review with the headliner of the show and work my way down to the openers, but because my experience on Thursday was so affected by the openers and the audience’s reaction toward them and the fact that I truly bought my ticket for the openers, maybe even more so than Church (I’ve seen him at least four previous times, whereas I’ve never seen Midland and only saw Hubbard for a 25-minute set at Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July festival in Austin, Texas in 2015) that it’s best to start at the beginning of the night. Ray Wylie Hubbard is a Texas songwriting legend and he can do it all. His music knows no bounds and genres. He’s country. He’s folk. He’s rock. He’s blues. He’s Americana. He’s Folkarolla, as he recently said on Twitter (or whatever that twat Elon Musk is calling his social media deal these days). And it seemed the smallest of percentages of the audience, who bothered showing up for the first opener of the Church show in Rogers, knew who the hell Hubbard was. And that immediately pissed me off. Legends not only should be known but they should be treated with at least a modicum of respect. And this crowd has not an ounce of respect for Hubbard, his band, his music and his performance the entire set from the first lick of the opening “Rabbit” to the last echo of the finishing “Desperate Man,” which Hubbard freakin’ co-wrote with Church and Church named an entire goddamn album after. And later in the evening, these same concertgoers would prove they know the song when Church performed it in his own set. Not only that, but Hubbard is one of Church’s songwriting heroes and is even name-dropped in one of his best songs “Mr. Misunderstood.” You would think something like that would lead to fans of Church knowing something about Hubbard! You can’t judge a musician’s set based on the reaction of an audience because Hubbard performed a six-song set of really good songs, including my favorite Hubbard song “Snake Farm,” off his 2006 album of the same name. It’s a song that if he were performing in his home state of Texas would probably be belted by a crowd at the top of their lungs, but in Rogers, it was pretty much me and a few others – I assume one of them the gentleman I saw walk by earlier in a Snake Farm T-shirt. I wonder how he felt about the crowd’s reaction to this all-timer. Next was Midland, from Dripping Springs, Texas, which is essentially three friends from out west who liked to perform country songs together and despite successful careers in other fields decided to make a go of it and have succeeded. I figured the crowd’s reaction would turn around once Midland took the stage. After all, Midland has been played on mainstream country radio – something that would be too afraid to play Hubbard – and has had a couple of top-five songs on country radio. But the crowd still did its own thing. Held conversations with each other. Got up every two minutes for another beer or bathroom trip. Twiddled their fingers while by-God actual country music was being performed right in front of their faces. It was clear this audience just wanted to tailgate essentially. They wanted to party inside the venue while waiting for Church and it didn’t matter if their partying came off as rude to those around them wanting to enjoy the sets of the openers or if it came off to the performers themselves as if they didn’t care. Much like Hubbard had done, Midland gave their best on the stage. They performed some of the best tracks of their most recent album 2022’s The Last Resort: Greetings From, including “If I Lived Here,” “Sunrise Tells the Story” and “Paycheck to Paycheck.” They played stuff from previous albums like a couple of my favorites in “Mr. Lonely” and “Cheatin’ Songs” off 2019’s Let It Roll, and “Burn Out,” off their 2017 debut On The Rocks. Lead vocalist Mark Wystrach shared the mic with his cohorts for a couple of songs letting guitarist Jess Carson perform a nice cover of my favorite Garth Brooks song “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)” and bassist Cameron Duddy rocked the crowd a bit with the Thin Lizzy classic “The Boys Are Back in Town.” It wasn’t until the opening notes of the band’s final song, “Drinkin’ Problem,” their biggest hit from 2017 that the audience’s attention seemed to perk up as if to say, “Hey, I know this one.” “Drinkin’ Problem,” is by far the group’s most played song on the radio and I think the attention given to it by the crowd just goes to show the insidiousness of country radio – after all remember what former C.E.O. of Sony Nashville said back in 2015: “if you’re not on country radio, you don’t exist.” As so to the majority of those attending the Church stop in Rogers, Ark. on Thursday, Ray Wylie Hubbard did not exist and only one song from Midland did. When the sun was completely gone from the sky and the lights on the stage went dark and smoke started billowing out from the set of doors at the back of the stage and Eric Church came out to the first notes of “Chattanooga Lucy,” from 2015’s Mr. Misunderstood, you would’ve thought the second coming of Christ was appearing right there in Rogers, Ark. by the reaction of the crowd. Don’t get me wrong, I was pumped too. I hadn’t seen Church since 2017 in Little Rock, Ark. and he’s always been one of the few mainstream country acts I’ve enjoyed since Nashville went and became a wasteland sometime in the late aughts. But the juxtaposition between the crowd’s response to Church and the artists who preceded him – though unsurprising – added to the rawness I’d felt during the evening. Anyway, you know by now that the crowd totally sucked, so how about a review of Church’s set? I wasn’t sure what I was going to get from Church’s set this time around because he’s changed things up a bit for his first-ever amphitheater tour and it’s rankled some of his fans. Gone from the set are some classic fan favorites he’s always done faithfully like “These Boots” and he’s added a horn section for the tour that doesn’t really seem to fit in with his style, as it has with other artists. But what Church did have and always has had were good songs and those were aplenty on Thursday night. He played many hits. He played some deep cuts. And I enjoyed nearly every one of them. His most recent release, the 2021’s triple-album Heart & Soul (& is its own album if you’re confused) has been my least favorite of his to date, but the songs he performed on Thursday night from it mostly had me singing along like “Heart on Fire” and “Bad Mother Trucker.” “Hell of a View” is a bit simplistic, but it seemed to be loved by the crowd. I know the deep-cut performance of “Livin’ Part of Life,” from his 2006 debut Sinners Like Me, really made my wife Aprille’s night. It’s one of her favorites. There were chest-banging hits throughout the show like “Creepin’,” “Smoke a Little Smoke,” “Drink in My Hand” and “Cold One” that energized the venue. There were also beautiful performances of non-singles like “Mistress Named Music” for a nice change of pace. He played some of my top-five favorites of his in “Give Me Back My Hometown” and “Mr. Misunderstood,” which were capable of making me compartmentalize some of my irritability from the night as a whole, and just shout the lyrics with thousands of others into the sticky night sky of Northwest Arkansas. And then came the encore, where he performed my all-time favorite song of his (which will likely always be my favorite of his) “Springsteen,” which included a new opening verse that honestly isn’t really that necessary (and somehow many within the crowd didn’t even realize was about to lead into “Springsteen” – I really have my doubts about the I.Q. of that particular audience). As I mentioned earlier, the horn section for this tour doesn’t do a whole lot for Church’s music and at times on Thursday night was even hard to hear over the mixture of sounds but having a saxophone on a song called “Springsteen” is perfect and does add to that particular performance. It just felt right. Church finished the show with what he told the audience was his favorite song – the touching “Holding My Own,” a tribute to his wife and sons from Mr. Misunderstood. It was a nice way to end the show. by Julian Spivey Seeing American Aquarium in concert in Little Rock has become something of an annual tradition for me and my wife, Aprille. We first saw them at The Revolution Room (affectionately known as The Rev Room) in Little Rock, Ark. in late May of 2018 and I believe we’ve seen them every year since with the exception of the pandemic year of 2020. So, there we were again at The Rev Room on Sunday night (July 23) for our annual night of fantastic, heart-pumping, sweat-pouring, rock music with a country tinge from one of the hardest-working bands in America. American Aquarium frontman and songwriter B.J. Barham told the enthusiastic crowd at The Rev Room on Sunday night that Little Rock is like a home away from home because it was the very first city outside of the band’s home state of North Carolina (home base being Raleigh) that really accepted and took in the band and its music. You can tell what the city and the fans in the city mean to the band, and Barham in particular as the only original member of the band by the way he glowingly talks about it and its impact on the band’s career. When I first saw the band in 2018 I did so because I had instantly loved the songs “The World’s on Fire” and “Tough Folks” off its, at that time, upcoming album Things Change and had remembered hearing “Losing Side of Twenty-Five” a few years before and enjoying it. They were also performing that night with another recent, at the time, favorite singer-songwriter of mine, Cory Branan. Through that performance that night, subsequent performances, and excellent subsequent albums (2020’s Lamentations and 2022’s Chicamacomico) I’ve gone on to love the band’s entire repertoire – I posted on Twitter the other night after the show that all of their songs are terrific, which doesn’t even make sense to me. You can tell by the band’s sweat-stained shirts and energetic movements on stage throughout their two-hour shows that they’re one of the hardest-working bands you’ll ever see, but the music is so good it also seems effortless. American Aquarium opened the Sunday night show with “Casualties,” from the 2012 album Burn.Flicker.Die., a perfect song to begin a night of raucous heartland rock with and somewhat of a theme for Barham and the boys. It was a non-stop performance of fantastic song after fantastic song for the next two hours with much of the crowd singing along to every last word. The band went through older classics like “St. Mary’s,” “Lonely Ain’t Easy” and the beautiful “Hurricane,” which damn near drops me every time I see Barham perform it live. They played plenty of the new stuff, the stuff that hooked me as a fan starting in 2018, with “The Long Haul,” “Tough Folks,” “Crooked + Straight,” “All I Needed” and “The Luckier You Get.” They played both songs inspired by another Little Rock music and drinking establishment, the White Water Tavern (another of my favorite Little Rock concert haunts) with “Bigger in Texas” and “Rattlesnake” with Barham heaping glowing praise upon that venue, which I’ve seen him do before at The Rev Room and it’s always slightly awkward thinking of what the folks who run this place must be thinking, but having been to the White Water Tavern many times there is something special about “those old hardwood floors.” The band had the crowd in the palm of its hand the entire night from the very first note struck, but both the band and the crowd were kicked into overdrive with the ending of the show culminating in fan favorites like “Wichita Falls,” especially “I Hope He Breaks Your Heart” (the go-to sing-along for all A.A. fans) and “Burn.Flicker.Die,” which works as another theme song of sorts for the band with its chorus of “We’re no different than the neon lights/When you turn us on we stay up all night/We do what we can, we put up a fight/Then we burn too long, we flicker and die.” Being a Sunday night and most of those in attendance likely having to get up and go to work the next morning the band didn’t want to do one of those cliché encores where they leave the stage and feed their egos by hearing the crowd clamor for their return, so they went straight into the encore with Barham taking center stage alone and the rest of the band taking a bit of a break. This is when one of the most riveting moments of the entire show took place – and frankly one of the most beautiful concert moments I’ve ever witnessed – and this was without Barham even strumming a chord on his guitar or singing a note. Barham told us a story about his mom. How much he loved her and everything she meant to him. Then he told us about the tragedy of her dying due to opioid addiction and how addiction runs in his family – I believe Barham said he was now seven years sober. He told us about how her death truly broke him when he didn’t receive his annual phone call from her at the exact moment on his birthday when he was born. Then he told us about his father and how his parents were married on the Fourth of July and how he made sure to be home for his dad on that day, and his dad one of the old-school tough Southern men broke down when he woke up on the first anniversary without his wife. He then performed “The First Year,” which was written about the entire thing he’d just told us. This was probably a 10-plus minute monologue from Barham to us in the audience just baring his entire heart and soul. It was truly special for everyone involved. Nobody interrupted with chatter. Nobody took the moment to get another beer or go to the restroom. He entranced us with one of the saddest stories any of us had probably ever heard – a story that I know personally affected some in the audience to tears because they had similar things happen to people they loved and adored. This moment in the show truly shown a light on the kind of storyteller Barham is – whether on an album or in conversation. Following “The First Year,” the band returned to the stage, including the night’s opener Kate Rhudy, who had performed a lovely set before American Aquarium’s, for “Just Close Enough.” Rhudy, also a native of Raleigh, N.C., performed the song and other backing vocals on the group’s most recent album Chicamacomico. The band ended the show, which is probably now my favorite of all of the ones I’ve seen them perform – they somehow keep getting better – with a raucous performance of “Katherine Belle,” which sent the entire crowd home with smiles on their faces. by Julian Spivey Caitlin Cannon – Amarillo and Little Rock Caitlin Cannon’s “Amarillo and Little Rock” will just about drop you to your knees with its story of breaking down – both figuratively and literally - somewhere on the road between Amarillo and Little Rock. I completely understand lines like: “always running behind, never can catch up.” It’s such a well-written song by Cannon with a nice conversational tone. Sundy Best – Bad Imagination This must be a particularly moody year for me thus far based on my 10 best of the year so far and Sundy Best’s “Pure Imagination,” from its album Feel Good Country, is certainly one of my favorites. The song, co-written by Nicholas Jamerson and Adam Landry, sees a narrator who’s stopping himself from being happy in life and features one of the year’s most unique, original and simply interesting melodies. Jamerson also cut a version of the song for his solo album, Peace Mountain, which is quite a bit different in its overall sound (I prefer the Sundy Best version) but still worth a listen for sure. Colby Acuff – Boy and a Bird Dog There are a lot of depressing, longing, sad songs on my 10 best of 2023 so far in the country and Americana genres list, but this ain’t one of those. Colby Acuff’s “Boy and a Bird Dog,” from his album Western White Pines, is a fun slice-of-life tune about a young boy spending all of his free time out in a field hunting with his best friend, his bird dog. It’s lovely and you’ll be sure to whistle along. Brandy Clark – Buried Brandy Clark’s “Buried” is one of the most beautiful and devastating songs I’ve heard so far this year in its tale of undying, but unreciprocated love. In the song she tells of all of the things she can do to pass the time and not think about her past love like reading “Lonesome Dove” and falling asleep to “Hallelujah,” but you can tell by her vulnerability in her voice that it’s next to impossible. The final line of the song will flatten you. “Buried” reminds me a bit of one of my all-time favorite country songs – “I’ll Think of Something” (Mark Chesnutt’s version). Boygenius – Cool About It I’m honestly not sure if Boygenius – the super trio of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus - should be included in the seemingly ever-encompassing Americana genre (Indie rock and folk rock are what their Wiki page labels them), but I like the song, so it’s here. “Cool About It” has the trio beautifully singing over a softly picked guitar about a seemingly young relationship that isn’t working out. I particularly love the line: “I can walk you home and practice method acting.” Colter Wall – Evangelina I realize what I’m about to say will be blasphemous for some, but some of Colter Wall’s recent past stuff has been a bit too Canadian wilderness, old-timey for me. I enjoyed his 2017 self-titled release but hadn’t heard a lot that hit my ear since then. His cover of the old Hoyt Axton Western song “Evangelina” immediately hit my ear. It tells the tale of a cowboy looking to get back home to the Mexican woman he loves through the hot desert sun. Josiah and the Bonnevilles – Jersey Giant “Jersey Giant” is freakin’ everywhere. The song was written, but never recorded by Tyler Childers, why I don’t understand, but he made it available recently for other artists and multiple ones immediately bit the hook. I first heard the song from the wonderful rendition by Elle King on her latest Come Get Your Wife, but my favorite performance of the song is by Josiah and the Bonnevilles. “Jersey Giant” sees the narrator recalling a past love and all the good times they had together and how he’s more than willing to relive some of them if his love just says yes. Ashley McBryde – Light on In the Kitchen Ashley McBryde is one of the best singer-songwriters currently in the country genre and the great thing about her music is it’s crossed over a bit into the mainstream – even if it hasn’t been as successful in the mainstream as it should be. She really gets the country life down in her music and “Light on In the Kitchen,” which she co-wrote with Jessi Alexander and Connie Harrington, is a perfect example of this as an advice song from one’s elder about life. I can’t wait for her latest album, The Devil I Know, which drops on September 8. Jason Isbell – Middle of the Morning Jason Isbell has been my favorite singer-songwriter over the last decade and his latest album Weathervanes just came out a few weeks ago and I’m still taking my time with it – but “Middle of the Morning” was one of the album’s singles released some time before the album that I’ve had longer to let sit in my head and it’s truly one that’s spoken to me – which is kind of unfortunate because it’s not exactly I happy song. Isbell has a knack for writing songs and lyrics that I really identify with and, of anything released this year thus far, this is the one that gets me the most. Brennen Leigh – Running Out of Hope, Arkansas I like creative wordplay and some of the best of it I’ve heard thus far in 2023 is Brennen Leigh combining the phrase “running out of hope” with the city of Hope, Ark. in her bluegrass number “Running Out of Hope, Arkansas” off her latest album Ain’t Through Honky Tonkin’ Yet. Getting out of your small town and seeking something greater in life has always been one of my favorite musical themes, and Leigh has this feeling down well on this track. by Julian Spivey Today is Kris Kristofferson's 87th birthday. He's one of the greatest songwriters ever. That's inarguable. I've seen him once. It was Willie Nelson's Fourth of July picnic in 2015 in Austin, Texas. Because it was a festival most artists were doing 30-minute sets. So, my only time seeing Kristofferson (who's since retired from performing) was a short set. It was still glorious - except for one thing - because it was just Kristofferson on stage with guitar, harmonica and mic (honestly the optimum way to see Kristofferson - though probably not in an outdoor venue) it wasn't loud. You really had to listen. Why wouldn't you though? It's Kristofferson! It's the guy who wrote "Me & Bobby McGee," "For the Good Times," "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down," "Help Me Make it Through the Night." And he performed ALL OF THEM. It should've been a great memory. Later that afternoon, David Allan Coe - a man who is probably everything that Kristofferson is not. A man whom I refuse to listen to due to his profiting off of racism. An asshole. A man, whom I wish these other artists (especially Willie Nelson) would tell to fuck off and never be heard or seen again. A man who's set I intentionally walked around the grounds of the venue to avoid seeing him during his set. Well, he was going to play soon. And the woman behind me was ecstatic. He was one of the artists she was most looking forward to seeing. And during Kristofferson's set, she talked the entire goddamn time - seemingly about Coe, but it may have been about other things too. I love Kris Kristofferson. I hate David Allan Coe. And, lady, wherever you are I'm never going to forget you. And I hate that too. by Julian Spivey The Foo Fighters brought their rock act to the 2023 Bonnaroo Arts & Musical festival on the final night of the four-day festival in Manchester, Tenn. with a mixture of classic fan favorites and new songs off their recently released 11th studio album But Here We Are. I had the pleasure of viewing the set thanks to the live stream via Hulu, which was doubly nice because I’d really wanted to see them in my home state of Arkansas on the Wednesday before but was unable to obtain tickets due to high demand, ticket scalping and the increasingly annoying trouble of the concert ticket buying process. It was the band’s Bonnaroo debut after their 2021 scheduled performance at the festival was washed out due to heavy rain in the area that caused flooding. It was an emotional night too, as they all are lately for the band and fans seeing them for the first time following the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022. Josh Freese has taken over drums for the band and did a fantastic job on Sunday night, even if it’s really weird to see someone else hammering away on the set behind Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl on the stage. The Foos began their Bonnaroo set with “All My Life,” their Grammy-winning 2002 track off One by One. They would follow it up with the hard-rocking “No Son of Mine,” off 2021’s Medicine at Midnight, which was the band’s final album with Hawkins. The first new song would follow with “Rescued,” the first single off But Here We Are, which came out at the beginning of the month. Much of the album feels like it came apart as a result of Hawkins’ death and in tribute to him. The band described the song and album as: “the first of 10 songs that run the emotional gamut from rage and sorrow to serenity and acceptance, and myriad points in between.” “Rescued” quickly went to No. 1 on the Billboard Rock Airplay chart after its release in April. Among the other new songs off But Here We Are performed at the festival on Sunday night were “Show Me How,” with Grohl’s daughter Violet joining on vocals and “Under You,” which I think could become a huge hit (or as big of a hit as a rock song can become in 2023) for the band. It has that quintessential Foo Fighters sound and is catchy enough to scream along with. Prior to the performance of “Show Me How,” Violet had joined her father on stage for a performance of “Shame Shame,” off Medicine at Midnight, which proved to be a fun Father’s Day moment for the elder Grohl. Even though I’ve seen it before in person and multiple times between concert streams and concert films it’s always a blast seeing Grohl, guitarist Pat Smear, guitarist Chris Shiflett, bassist Nate Mendel, keyboardist Rami Jaffee and now Freese on drums go through classic song after song spanning more than a quarter-century now of great rock music. The band rifled off terrific hit after hit like “Walk,” “The Pretender,” “Learn to Fly,” “Breakout,” “This is a Call,” “Monkey Wrench” and “Best of You” during the show showcasing pretty much something off every one of their albums. Hayley Williams, vocalist of Paramore which performed at the festival prior to the Foos, would join the band on stage for a bit of its performance of “My Hero,” though her participation seemed minimal (not sure if it was a sound issue). One of the most emotional performances of the evening was the stripped-down version of “Times Like These,” which has seen Grohl performing most of the song acapella without the band before bringing them on to rock the house down for the finish. It works as sort of a tribute to their fallen bandmate. At the end of the set, Grohl performed “Aurora,” off 2001’s There Is Nothing Left to Lose, which he told the packed crowd was Hawkins’ favorite Foo Fighters song. It was on Hawkins’ first album as the band’s full-time drummer. The band then finished the evening and the festival off the way every Foo Fighters show should come to an end with a fantastic performance of “Everlong,” which is probably universally considered the No. 1 song for the band and with good reason. It was truly nice to see the band bounce back from tragedy and heartbreak and continue doing what they do best and it’s great they’re continuing with fantastic new music too.
by Julian Spivey
Today is the 10th anniversary of the release of Jason Isbell’s seminal album Southeastern, a modern classic and Americana all-timer that sent Isbell’s career skyrocketing in popularity. It’s also one of my all-time favorite albums, which is why I wanted to celebrate its “tin” anniversary by breaking it down track by track. Cover Me Up “Cover Me Up,” the opening track on Jason Isbell’s Southeastern, has probably become the most beloved song of his discography (though it could easily be any of a dozen songs depending on which Isbell fan you ask). Seeing the song performed in person it definitely gets the biggest reaction from the crowd when Isbell sings the line: “I sobered up and I swore off that stuff forever this time.” “Cover Me Up” is potentially the most personal song on a obviously personal album for Isbell as you can tell it’s about his, at the time burgeoning, relationship with his future wife Amanda Shires and the need to conquer his demons to adequately pursue that love. I hate that one mainstream country asshole covered this song and that some people associate it with him instead of this all-time beauty of a track. You have my permission to punch anyone in the face who claims that cover is a better version. Stockholm “Stockholm” has always been one of my favorite tracks on Southeastern. It’s likely because it’s one of the easier songs to sing along with on the album and is quite catchy and fun – something that you’re not really going to get much from the album. It’s about relationships perhaps wanting to be with his new love, perhaps dealing with his addiction or both. It is perhaps one of the more cryptic songs on the album and parts of it – even perhaps my favorite parts – I’m not sure I fully understand, but as Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes puts it brilliantly at the end of his masterpiece “A Little Bit of Everything”: “it’s like trying to make out every word/when they should simply hum along.” Traveling Alone “Traveling Alone” was the first song I ever heard off Southeastern – I think it may have been released as a single before the album came out – and I loved it from the beginning. Interestingly, it probably wound up being one of my least listened-to tracks on the album over the last decade. The song perfectly encapsulates a traveling musician going from town to town to play shows and the loneliness they can experience living such a life. There’s some hopefulness to it as he finds himself asking someone to tag along with him on the ride – most likely Amanda Shires, who at the time was his girlfriend, not yet his wife, who joins him in harmony on the chorus. Elephant If you’ve ever Googled “Saddest Songs of All-Time,” it’s likely “Elephant” is on that list and if it isn’t it damn well should be. The song details the devastating tale of a young woman dying of cancer from the perspective of a male friend who loves her. It’s touching because it’s an experience nearly everyone has gone through either personally or has seen a loved one go through and is such a helpless feeling and situation to be in. There are some strikingly gut-wrenching lyrics in the song, but the one that always hits me the hardest is: “There’s one thing that’s real clear to me/No one dies with dignity.” It’s not a track you’ll want to shout along to and it may make you cry every single time you hear it, but it’s undoubtedly one of the most impressive songs on a modern classic of an album. Flying Over Water “Flying Over Water” stands out on Southeastern because it’s only one of two rockers on the album and it comes up first. It makes for a nice respite from the naked, stripped-downness of the album. In the song, the narrator and his partner (possibly Isbell and Shires, but maybe even Isbell’s first wife Shonna Tucker or both), take off on a flight – possibly their first major trip from home – and the anxiousness such a thing can lead to. Critic Steven Hyden brilliantly compared the imagery of the song to the final scene of the classic 1967 Mike Nichols film “The Graduate,” saying: “A thread that connects Isbell’s relationship songs concerns lovers who might be too broken to actually be together.” Different Days “Different Days” is a nice, acoustic folk song about trying to escape an old life and find something new while maturing with age. It’s filled with terrific lyrics like the entire penultimate verse: “And the story’s only mine to live and die with/And the answers only mine to come across/But the ghosts that I got scared and I got high with/Look a little lost.” I believe it’s Isbell coming to grips with the man he is now and the man he used to be. Live Oak “Live Oak” isn’t the only song on Southeastern that’s more of a story song than personal, though there are obvious personal moments in its lyrics – especially the opening and closing: “There’s a man who walks beside me/her it is who I used to be and I wonder if she sees him and confuses him with me,” but it’s the only one that takes us back in time. The time period is never expressly stated, but I’ve always felt it was set sometime in the late 1800s. It’s the story of a killer and robber who flees to another part of the country to begin life anew and falls in love, but when the rumors of his past life catch up to him he’s forced to kill and run again. Sometimes horror can be devastatingly beautiful. Songs That She Sang in the Shower I’ve always loved the lyrics to “Songs That She Sang in the Shower,” from the wittiness of the first verse where the narrator mouths off to someone he views as beneath him intellectually to the specificity of the heartbreak of a failed relationship and the pain of never hearing certain songs the same way again. I can’t help but wonder if the song is about Isbell’s first failed marriage and if songs like Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here,” Willie Nelson’s “Yesterday’s Wine,” Dusty Springfield’s “Breakfast in Bed” and Anti-Flag’s “Bring Out Your Dead” had important meaning to that relationship or if they just rhymed easily with the rest of the lyrics. New South Wales “New South Wales” has always been my least listened-to track from Southeastern and I don’t really know why – it’s certainly not lacking in comparison to the rest of the album. I’ve never really understood why the title shares its name with a state on the east coast of Australia, but commenters on songmeanings.com seemingly in the know say it’s about the time Isbell toured Australia with fellow singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle and bad experiences on that tour with substances was one of the catalysts to him seeking sobriety. I wish the supremely talented Earle, who died in 2020 from an overdose of fentanyl-laced cocaine, had done the same. Super 8 I don’t know how much truth there is to “Super 8,” the hardest rocking track off Southeastern, but it certainly seems and feels completely real, especially knowing Isbell’s bout with alcoholism early in his career. It’s complete rock & roll debauchery with drinking, drugs, women, fights, wrecking motel rooms, puking in sinks, almost dying and being resuscitated. It sounds like a nightmare that comes off as humorous for having survived it all. Yvette When Southeastern first came out I had “Yvette” as the highest-ranked track from the album in this website’s end-of-year best songs of Country and Americana Music list. The album has some dark songs and themes, but I’m not sure any are darker than this song about childhood sexual abuse from one’s father and the teenage neighbor witnessing the vile act and deciding to assassinate the father from his bedroom window. It’s one of the few, if only, song(s) on the album that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Isbell’s life at the time, purely a fictional story song complete with terrific slide guitar from Isbell. It (along with potentially “New South Wales” – I can’t remember) is the only song from Southeastern I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Isbell perform live in concert. Relatively Easy “Relatively Easy,” as the final track on Southeastern, must be some sort of summary for the piece as a whole – potentially that the songwriter has been through the hell of alcoholism and the struggle to get sober and has come out the other side of it with a bit of wisdom in that even though life is hard there’s always someone else out there struggling even more. The Mavericks Bring Latin-Infused Genre-Bending Music to Joliet's Glorious Rialto Square Theatre5/22/2023 by Julian Spivey The Mavericks brought their Latin-infused brand of country music/rockabilly/Americana (there are so many genres and subgenres of music these days and this group fits these and more) to the beautiful Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet, Ill. on Thursday, May 18. As an out-of-towner seeing the show on vacation, this was my first experience at the Rialto Square Theatre and it’s without a doubt the most picturesque venue I’ve ever seen a live show at. The venue opened nearly 100 years ago in 1926 and was originally designed and operated as a vaudeville movie palace. It’s designed in the Neo-Baroque style and according to the American Institute of Architects it’s considered one of the “150 great places in Illinois.” The theatre was renovated in the late 1970s and now hosts concerts, musicals, plays and stand-up comedy. The Mavericks seem like a perfect band for such a wonderful theatre and they put on one helluva show musically, though I was disappointed in the vocal sound – which I’m not sure if that was a venue issue or a soundboard issue having never seen a show at the Rialto Square Theatre before. But it made many of Raul Malo’s vocals a bit unintelligible, especially on songs I didn’t know as well and those with a more country-rock or rockabilly vibe. The words were much easier to make out on ballads like “Blue Moon” and “Amsterdam Moon,” which really show off Malo’s vocals. Malo has often reminded me of a modern-day Roy Orbison with his silky smooth voice. The group opened their two-hour set with “All Night Long,” one of the highlights on their 2015 album Mono. It immediately got the crowd energized for what was ahead of them during the evening. The crowd was interesting for me as it was mostly age 50 and older and white, which maybe isn’t too surprising given the more upscale style of the venue and the age of the band – they’ve been around almost 35 years and have styles of music that skew toward older audiences – but I figured there might be a more eclectic audience for The Mavericks. I especially figured there’d be more Latin flavor to the audience. Again, I was an out-of-towner for Joliet, but driving through the area it seemed to have a decent Hispanic demographic and a basic Google search shows the city to have an almost 34 percent Hispanic population. Ultimately, the demographics of the audience have no impact on the performance, but I found it noteworthy in its surprise. The Mavericks charted 13 times on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart during the ‘90s, so I had known some of their stuff as a younger man. Surprisingly the group never had a top-10 country hit. But the band’s terrific 2013 release In Time really familiarized me with their work. The group would perform seven tracks from that album on Thursday night, including the aforementioned “Amsterdam Moon,” “Forgive Me,” and some obvious crowd favorites in “As Long as There’s Loving Tonight,” “Dance in the Moonlight” and “Back in Your Arms Again.” The band would perform a couple of numbers from their Spanish-language album En Español, from 2020, which some in the audience, unfortunately, took as the time to use the restroom or get refreshments. Though I don’t speak Spanish and didn’t understand a word (so it truly wasn’t much different from some of the other songs throughout the night) “La Sitiera” and “Recuerdos” sounded nice musically. The Mavericks saved my favorite two performances of the evening for their encore. They opened with “Come Unto Me,” which is my favorite track on In Time. It’s a song I’ve always wanted to see the group perform live and have often said it has such power to it, especially Malo’s vocal, that it makes me want to fight a bull as if I were a matador. The group finished its set with an awesome performance of their biggest charting hit, “All You Ever Do is Bring Me Down,” which hit No. 13 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 1996 from the group’s 1995 album Music for All Occasions. Malo is one of the best vocalists in any genre of music, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the other fantastic members of The Mavericks. Eddie Perez plays a masterful lead guitar in the band, alongside Malo also on guitar. Paul Deakin holds things down on the drums and Jerry Dale McFadden plays the keyboard and has an awful lot of fun doing so, always grooving along with the sound. Malo and Deakin are original members. McFadden joined the band in 1994 and Perez in 2003. The group also has a horn section that really puts on a show consisting of saxophonist Max Abrams and trumpeters Julio Diaz and Lorenzo Molina. But the group member who dropped jaws the most on Thursday night was probably accordionist Percy Cardona, who makes the instrument look sexy. by Julian Spivey Many people may not have known the name of Iowan country music singer-songwriter Hailey Whitters before Saturday night’s performance at the annual Toad Suck Daze Festival in Conway, Ark. but she certainly had them eating out of the palm of their hands by the end of her 75-minute set. Fifteen years from now those in attendance on the Conway square on Saturday night might be able to tell their friends and family, “I saw Hailey Whitters back before she blew up,” just like past Toad Suck Daze Festival goers could say today about now huge artists like Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton and Little Big Town. Whitters, from the tiny town of Shueyville, Iowa, has released three albums in her career thus far, the independent 2015 release Black Sheep and two well-reviewed albums in the last three years: 2020’s The Dream and last year’s Raised. Whitters, who has already been nominated for a major Grammy Award in 2022 for her co-write on the Alicia Keys/Brandi Carlile collaboration “A Beautiful Noise,” is up for her first Academy of Country Music (ACM) Award next week for New Female Artist of the Year. Whitters opened her show Saturday night in downtown Conway with the title track from her latest album for the crowd that was a mixture of some who knew her (one big fan really enjoying herself in the front row even coming from Texas for the show), those hearing of her for the first time and festival goers stopping by amidst their stroll between grabbing freshly squeezed lemonade, corndogs and other carnival type foods. I don’t usually pay attention to the fashion choices of the artists I see in concert, but I absolutely adored that Whitters chose to wear a beautiful lime green dress for a performance at a festival named after an amphibian. Having only three albums – and two that have been what I’d consider major releases – Whitters was able to showcase much of her current discography on Saturday night and it’s pretty impressive for someone who’s only 33 years old (though she said she had been in Nashville working odd jobs and trying to make it big for a dozen years before she made it). It’s even more impressive that she seems to have a hand in writing nearly all of her tracks and has worked with many of Nashville’s best songwriters like Brandy Clark, Lori McKenna and Shane McAnally on co-writes. Whitters had the opportunity to perform an incredible eight tracks off Raised, more than half of the album on Saturday night. Among my favorite performances from that album were “Plain Jane,” “Big Family,” and “Middle of America,” which she does with American Aquarium frontman B.J. Barham on the album but handled solo on Saturday. The performance of “College Town” off that album was particularly poignant coming in the town known as “The City of Colleges,” for its three colleges all within walking distance of the town square in the University of Central Arkansas (my alma mater), Hendrix College and Central Baptist College. One of my favorite songs off Raised is “The Neon,” which tells of a woman going through a breakup and getting back in the saddle and going out to have some fun. It was one of the highlights of Saturday’s show. Whitters would perform four songs off The Dream and its deluxe edition, including “Fillin’ My Cup,” which she does on the album with Little Big Town, and “How Far Can It Go?,” which features Trisha Yearwood on the album. Whitters thrilled the crowd by doing some of Yearwood’s 1991 smash “She’s In Love with the Boy,” which was an obvious inspiration for her song. Whitters’ cover game was absolutely on point on Saturday night with terrific performances of John Mellencamp’s ‘80s heartland classic “Small Town,” John Denver’s legendary “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and Alan Jackson’s 1994 No. 1 hit “Gone Country.” There was no doubt Whitters has great taste in her country and country-adjacent heroes. Whitters ended the show with her biggest hit thus far, her first Billboard country music charter “Everything She Ain’t,” which peaked at No. 22 on the Country Airplay chart last year and apparently was helped out by a massive trend or following on TikTok. It’s the song that might have Whitters on a trajectory from critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter to a mainstream hitmaker. She’d be having hit after hit in country music if this were the ‘90s or early ‘00s, but we all know how much of a struggle mainstream country can and has been for women, even the absolute best of them over the last decade-plus. Whitters is the real deal and I hope she finds major success within the country genre. I’ll be keeping up with her future output either way. by Julian Spivey The Sunday (April 30) evening lineup of the final day of the 2023 Stagecoach Festival in Indio, Calif. was absolute fire with Turnpike Troubadours, Tyler Childers, Brooks & Dunn and Chris Stapleton. The Turnpike Troubadours took the Palomino Stage by storm early in the evening with a 45-minute set featuring many of their fan favorites and the concert debut of one of their new songs. The Oklahoma red dirt country band began their set with “Before the Devil Knows We’re Dead,” from 2012’s Goodbye Normal Street, a true highlight of their shows that Amazon Music, unfortunately, missed the first half or so on its stream. The band, which reunited in 2022 after about a half-decade hiatus, performed many of my favorites from their 2010 release Diamonds & Gasoline, like “Every Girl,” “Whole Damn Town,” “Kansas City Southern” and my personal favorite “7 & 7.” The surprise from Turnpike’s Stagecoach set was the concert debut of a brand new song called “Mean Old Sun,” which hopefully is a sign we’ll be getting a new Turnpike Troubadours album sometime before the end of the year. Tyler Childers followed the Turnpike Troubadours at the Palomino Stage on Sunday night with an electric set that really had the audience eating from the palm of his hand. The Kentucky native, who’s in the middle of his Send in the Hounds Tour, certainly brought his A-game to Stagecoach and it was great to see as I haven’t yet had the pleasure of attending one of Childers’ shows in person. You could see he was having a great time on stage. His gospel triple-album Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? was greatly featured during the set with an amazing performance of the title track, “Old Country Church,” “Way or the Triune God,” “Heart You’ve Been Tendin’” and that album’s version of “Purgatory,” which was done in more of a bluegrass style on the 2017 album that shares its name. Among my favorite performances of the Childers set were the opening “Whitehouse Road,” which has long been one of my favorites of his, as well as “All Your’n” and “House Fire,” from his 2019 album Country Squire. The truly dynamic performance of the set was the final song where he performed “Lady May,” a fan-favorite off Purgatory and you could hear the entire crowd singing it along with him – it wasn’t one of those moments where the artist turns the microphone toward the audience and lets them do it either, they were truly in unison and it made for the most magical moment of any of the Stagecoach performances I caught over the weekend. Brooks & Dunn took the Mane (spelled that way intentionally as in a horse’s mane) Stage as the second to last performance on Sunday night for what amounted to a greatest hits performance from the most legendary duo in the history of country music. The set, at least the early part of it, was plagued by sound issues that at one point completely killed the mic for Kix Brooks as he was performing “You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone,” the duo’s No. 1 hit from 1995. Incredibly B&D performed nine No. 1 hits during their hour-long set including: “My Maria” (1996), “Brand New Man” (1991), “Ain’t Nothing ‘bout You” and “Only in America” (both 2001) and “Play Something Country,” (2005). Though, I would’ve preferred a set without “Play Something Country” and “Put a Girl In It” (2008), which came toward the end of the duo’s recording run when it seemed they were interested in chasing trends of the era to keep themselves relevant. There were some nice surprises during the B&D set, most notable Brooks doing “Lost and Found,” one of my favorites from the duo, and the 2008 No. 2 hit “Cowgirls Don’t Cry,” with Lainey Wilson (who had performed earlier in the day) coming out to fill in for the Reba McEntire verse. Unfortunately, Brooks sounded off the entire night. I’m hoping it was more sound issues or him not feeling well than just being what he sounds like these days. My two favorite performances of the night were “Red Dirt Road,” which despite having been a No. 1 in 2003 I still believe to be one of their most underrated singles, and “Neon Moon,” a No. 1 from 1992 that if you had to choose just one B&D song to last all eternity would be the choice.” The band, of course, also performed their line dance hit “Boot Scootin’ Boogie.” Chris Stapleton, the headliner for the festival's final night, did his usual thing of blowing everybody’s minds and hearts away with his singing, songwriting and guitar playing, while not saying a whole lot from the stage. He said it was because he wanted to get more songs in, but really that’s just who he is and we don’t need the chit-chat/banter anyway. The sound was messing up again for Stapleton’s set opener “Nobody to Blame,” from his Traveller album, but thankfully the crew got it fixed before the next performance. Stapleton probably played for around 90 minutes and absolutely blew everybody away with amazing performances from his entire discography. My favorite Stapleton album is still his 2015 debut Traveller from which he performed six tracks, including my absolute favorite “Fire Away,” which he killed as usual. Other tracks from the album included “Parachute,” “Outlaw State of Mind” and “The Devil Named Music,” which included a decent portion of the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic “Free Bird” ahead of it. Stapleton’s From A Room albums had, I believe, six songs performed with high energy performances of “Midnight Train to Memphis,” “Millionaire,” “Second One to Know” and “Broken Halos” among them. His most recent release, 2020’s Starting Over, featured the amazing title track, the smooth vocals of both “Cold” and “You Should Probably Leave,” as well as an absolutely rocking performance of “Arkansas.” It was hit after hit from Stapleton late Sunday night and the Stagecoach crowd ate it up and when he ended his set perfectly with “Tennessee Whiskey,” the classic cover that put him on the map as a performer nearly a decade ago it was the best possible way to end a festival dedicated to country music. |
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