Rodney Crowell @ The Horseshoe Tavern
I got the feeling, listening to Rodney Crowell play, that if it was half as much fun as being a musician, he'd probably write novels instead. The man is a born storyteller, a walking mass of interwoven characters and themes and plot lines, with a real gift for telling stories in his songs and on the stage. Add to that his musical talents, and it makes for an endlessly fascinating, moving show.
It was a quiet audience in the Shoe Wednesday night, but quiet in a respectful, intense sort of way. Even the usual gaggle of talkers at the back of the room were dead silent and intent on listening to every word and every note. He commented on it at one point from the stage, and someone yelled back that the crowd was mesmerized. Mesmerized was exactly the right word.
The set was comprised largely of material from Fate's Right Hand and the new album to be released in August called the Outsiders with a bit of Houston Kid and some older stuff thrown in, as well. From a lesser man, a four song line-up of material from an unreleased album that immediately followed a brand new song that's so new it's not even on that album would be a pretty destructive act of pride. Crowell managed to pull it off flawlessly, and take the audience with him on a ride through that new stuff. I'm expecting something simply outstanding from that album when it comes out, because the songs he showed off in concert were brilliant.
Particularly moving was a song called 'Beautiful Despair' which opens:
Beautiful despair is hearing Dylan when you're drunk at 3 a.m.
Knowing that the chances are
No matter what, you'll never write like him
Oh brother.
Damn, I was nearly in tears just listening to him sing those words. The fact that I remember them even now, having heard them only once is a testament to their strength. They just might be lines that prove themselves false.
I have Fate's Right Hand, but didn't love it all that much after thinking Houston Kid was the best album of the year it was released. I only ever listened to it twice, before dropping it in the CD drawer. But hearing him do those songs that night was like listening to the album for the first time again. It seemed fresher, more interesting, more instense than it ever did on CD. I'll have to pull the disc out and revisit it to see if there's something I missed the first time.
It was a truly outstanding show, with less self-indulgent guitar wankery than you might have expected from a band that consists of a drummer and four guitar players (though more than I might have liked), and every word of every song and every story and every story song was perfectly placed.