It was the eleventh stop on Earle’s first tour since completing a recent rehab stint, and he certainly looked pleased to be back on the stage. He could be seen smiling at his bandmates (opener Joshua Hedley on fiddle and Bryn Davies on stand-up bass) during “They Killed John Henry,” and it wouldn’t be the only time Earle would express his happiness. Maybe it was the warm glow of the Christmas tree lights onstage, but the 28-year-old looked less like the angry songwriter the press has recently made him out to be and more like a baby-faced boy excited to play his songs again. And play he did.
He opened on a somber note and hearing Earle sing, “you take your pills and poison/drink yourself to death,” on “Who Am I To Say” made it very clear that he was not going to shy away from addressing his vices. He openly shared that he liked to drink and do drugs before launching into an extremely soulful take on “Slippin’ and Slidin’,” and while he may have made some audience members a bit uncomfortable with his brutal honesty, he was still charming every step of the way.
Earle elicited laughs when he mentioned those “damn cokeheads,” and respectfully addressed the crowd as “ladies and gentlemen” throughout the evening. His stories about Townes Van Zandt’s craziness and his mom’s brand new Facebook page were hilarious and, much like a lot of his music, Earle’s anecdotes reveal every nuance of what it must have been like to have lived a big part of his life as “Steve Earle’s son.”
He is, however, his own man now, and that is evidenced in the way he delivers his songs. He absolutely killed it on a cover of Lightning Hopkins’ “I Been Burning Bad Gasoline” (which he dedicated to Van Zandt) and induced foot stomping on set-closer, “Harlem River Blues.” It’s hard to imagine how much better the stomping would’ve sounded if the floor at Crowbar was wooden like the stage, but Earle apparently did enough to induce some bipedal damage to himself. ("Thanks Tampa! Had a great time,” he said in a post-show Twitter message, “I think I may have sprained my foot stomping, so you know it’s true!”) The pain was surely worth it, though.
The three-piece band delivered beautiful harmonies on “I Don’t Care,” and Hedley’s fiddle playing on the track – which found Earle utilizing a hyper-speed delivery to spin tales of jumping railroad cars and gambling – made the moment feel like a straight up hoedown. “South Georgia Sugar Babe” and “Move Over Mama” were equally rousing and should’ve induced more dancing, but at the end of the day, Earle was still most captivating when he slowed it down.
A down tempo version of “Mama’s Eyes” from last year’s Midnight at the Movies felt as fresh as it probably did when Earle wrote it, and his earnest croon made it easy to imagine the scene when he sang “now I’m standing in the kitchen/holding my last cigarette/I strike a match and I see my reflection in the mirror in the hall/and I say to myself, ‘I’ve got my Mama’s Eyes’” The lyrics were chilling, but the music was a show in itself. It was interesting to watch Earle masterfully execute the Travis picking pattern (he really does hammer down with his thumb) and while the dischord on the intro passage of “Halfway to Jackson” was haunting, it was nowhere as bone chilling as what happened in the encore.
Encore’s seem obligatory these days, but an acapella cover of Randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927” restored the grace to the sacred act of calling an artist back on stage. Earle showed that he probably didn’t even need to bring his guitar to the show and it’s safe to say that his version easily trumps Newman’s 1974 tale of the Great Mississippi Flood. Hurricane Katrina happened just five years ago and Earle’s faithful delivery of the line, “Louisiana/Louisiana/They’re tryin’ to wash us away,” epitomized why he’s so special in the first place.
He’s a young man with old-time music running through his veins. His lyrics contain contemporary subject matter, but the themes of broken promises, wandering, and heartache are age old. He’s the son of one of our country’s most famous troubadours, and while his musical ear may have surely benefited from being in the company of a legend, he doesn’t seem apt to take it for granted. Instead, he’s always pushing forward, looking for a song, and we can only hope he keeps finding them.
For his part, Earle doesn’t seem worried about losing the muse. “I think it’s funny when reporters ask me if I’m working on another album,” he said during one of the sets many storytelling sessions, “it’s like ‘Yeah, I’m a songwriter, what am I supposed to do?'”
Setlist
01. Who Am I To Say
02. Move Over Mama
03. They Killed John Henry
04. I Don’t Care
05. (Unknown)
06. Mama’s Eyes
07. (Unknown)
08. One More Night In Brooklyn
09. Ain’t Waitin’
10. Christchurch Woman
11. Wanderin’
12. Slippin’ and Slidin’
13. I Been Burning Bad Gasoline (Lightning Hopkins Cover)
14. (New Song)
15. South Georgia Sugar Babe
16. Someday I’ll Be Forgiven For This
17. Halfway to Jackson
18. Midnight At the Movies
19. (Unknown)
20. Harlem River Blues
21. Louisiana 1927 (Randy Newman Cover)
22. Can’t Hardly Wait
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