The Peabody Opera House still has that ‘new venue smell’ to it a year after its reopening and was a marvelous venue for three veteran performers last night.
Richard Thompson’s ‘Electric’ trio (Michael Jerome – drums, Taras Prodaniuk – bass) kicked things off with ‘Stuck On the Treadmill’ from the new album – a typically rollicking Thompson offering of post-industrial depression – to an enthusiastic cadre of RT fans and some Emmylou/Crowell followers who showed up early and got a very pleasant surprise. One enthusiastically asked me at intermission if I’d “ever heard of this guy?”
Point of fact, this probably exceed the price I’d ever paid to hear Thompson before by double and may have been the furthest away I’ve ever sat for a Richard Thompson concert (in fact, I was further away than I could have been and still been inside any of the other venues).
Thompson stuck to the new album in the hour he had with the exception of a seven-minute ‘Can’t Win’ tour-de-force, ’52 Vincent Black Lightning’, and the last song, ‘Tear-Stained Letter’, appropriately enough a Thompson-penned country Top 10 hit for Jo-el Sonnier and, later, Patti Lovelace.
Emmylou & Crowell, by contrast, dipped deeply in their own separate and joint catalogues as well as some of the lesser-known country standards before hitting up their new collaboration ‘Old Yellow Moon’ which has its fair share of country classics as well including the old Waylon Jennings hit ‘Dreaming My Dreams’.
The highlight of the evening was the Matraca Berg-written song ‘Back When We Were Beautiful’, an unsentimental take on the pain of growing old that breaks hearts when sung in Emmylou’s bright soprano.
I grew up with country music on the radio. My folks loved it so I hated it of course. I’m still not a big fan of modern country radio (I try to listen to my friend Mac when he’s on the air and usually make it about seven minutes), but have found my way back through alt-country bands like Uncle Tupelo and Blue Mountain and especially through singer-songwriters like Crowell, Steve Earle, and Townes Van Zant (who’s Pancho & Lefty the duo nailed last night).
Part of it too may be the old notion that ‘country music is for grown-ups’. Last night’s songs held a lot more spill than thrills and more heartaches than heartthrobs. It speaks to the 50-year old me in a way it couldn’t when I was seventeen.
The pair put together a top-notch band of old Nashville veterans and young guns from as far away as Adelaide, Australia that smoked through tunes like ‘Leavin’ Louisiana in the Broad Daylight’, another Crowell song, this one a hit for the Oak Ridge Boys.
Thompson rejoined the pair for Crowell’s ‘I Ain’t Living Long Like This’ and the two returned for an encore of classic duos: the Louvin Brothers’ ‘If I Could Only Win Your Love’ and a mournfully slow version of the Everly Brothers’ ‘Love Hurts’, before introducing the ‘road dogs’, making a pitch for local animal shelter adoption, and sending the crowd home as happy as they could be after a night of sad country songs.
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