Steve Earle and The Dukes (and The Duchesses)
09-21-2011
Uptown Theater
Kansas City, MO
Source: Schoeps MK4 > Naiant Tinybox > Olympus LS-10 @ 48 kHz / 24-bit
Lineage: 48/24 WAV > Audacity 1.2.6 (split tracks, resample to 44.1 kHz, dither to 16-bit) > Traders Little Helper (convert to flac - level 7)
Setlist:
Set 1:
01 Waitin' On The Sky
02 Little Emperor
03 The Gulf Of Mexico
04 Molly-O
05 Every Part Of Me
06 ~ intro to City Of Immigrants / bouzouki ~
07 City Of Immigrants
08 I Feel Alright
09 My Old Friend The Blues
10 Someday
11 Guitar Town
12 Days Aren't Long Enough (Steve & Allison)
13 The Broken Girl (Allison Moorer)
14 Getting Somewhere (Allison Moorer)
15 A Change Is Gonna Come (Allison Moorer)
Set 2:
01 Copperhead Road
02 Ben McCulloch
03 Galway Girl
04 ~ intro to Harlan Man / The Mountain ~
05 Harlan Man
06 The Mountain
07 Free Men (Kelley Looney)
08 Meet Me In The Alleyway
09 God Is God
10 Heaven Or Hell
11 Crash Test (the Mastersons)
12 ~ intro to This Town / chat about New Orleans ~
13 This Town
14 Taneytown
15 Hardcore Troubadour
16 The Revolution Starts Now
17 ~ encore break ~
18 Fort Worth Blues
19 Hillbilly Highway
20 ~ intro to Devil's Right Hand / chat about JTE ~
21 Devil's Right Hand
22 ~ encore break ~
23 It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
24 The Unrepetant
Lineup:
Steve Earle
Allison Moorer
Chris Masterson
Eleanor Whitmore
Kelley Looney
Will Rigby
Review from Kansas City Star:
2011 has become a year of notable anniversaries in music: Nirvana’s “Nevermind” is celebrating its 20th birthday; so is the band Pearl Jam. Less auspiciously but just as notable, this year is also the 25th anniversary of the release of “Guitar Town,” Steve Earle’s acclaimed first album.
Since “Guitar Town,” Earle has fallen in and out of hardcore drug addiction, been in and out of jail, been in and out of several marriages and released 12 more albums, including this year’s “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.” Wednesday night, he and his band, the Dukes and Duchesses, gave a crowd of about 600 at the Uptown Theater a three-hour tour of his discography, an impressive collection of songs studded with some of the best songwriting of the past 25 years.
He opened with five straight tracks from the new record, then “City of Immigrants, his tribute to New York and its vast, deep melting pot. After that, a few of his classics, including three from “Guitar Town: “My Old Friend the Blues,” “Someday” and the title track.
The Dukes and Duchesses include Earle’s wife (and mother of their 17-month-old son, John Henry) Allison Moorer, who showed off her gorgeous voice several times, including during her three-song set right before the 20-minute intermission. Like her sister, Shelby Lynne, Moorer is a great singer and good songwriter who could never find a home in either pop or country. She looks and sounds comfortable right where she is.
Earle gave other band members a moment in the spotlight. The Mastersons (Chris Masterson and Eleanor Whitmore) a married duo from Brooklyn, N.Y., sang a cheery ditty called “Crash Test,” and his bass player, Kelley Looney, sang a tune called “Free Men.” (And by the way, his drummer is Will Rigby, formerly of the dBs.)
Those moments were side dishes amid the feast that was Earle’s music. Throughout the night, he and his band changed instruments between songs. Moorer played keyboards, accordion and guitar. Earle introduced the crowd to his bouzouki and advised everyone not to call it that when going through security at the airport: “Just say it’s a banjo.”
He cracked wise and told stories a few times. Before “Devil’s Right Hand, “ he talked about his evolution from a “peacenik with an arsenal” to a man without guns, thanks to the time his teenage son, Justin Townes, stole one of his pistols and hid it in the house. That song, he reminded everyone, had a place in “Brokeback Mountain.” He also played “This City,” which played during season-ending closing credits to “Treme,” the HBO series about New Orleans post-Katrina.
The crowd this evening was appreciative but relatively sedate, even during more raucous numbers, like “Copperhead Road,” which opened the second set. Maybe it was the attendance. The Uptown is made for crowds much bigger than 600, so the place lacked a sense of fullness. Otherwise the conditions were ideal: The sound was clean, and Earle and the band delivered a long, lively show with many highlights. Among them: “Heaven or Hell,” a duet with Moorer (which had a strong Buddy and Julie Miller flavor); the grimy country-blues rocker “Taneytown”; “Fort Worth Blues,” his lovely, bittersweet tribute to Townes Van Zandt; and the one-two bluegrass-ish punch of “ Harlan Man” and “The Mountain,” from the album he made with the Del McCoury Band.
He closed with a Dylan cover (“Bob wrote this,” he said), “It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” then “The Unrepentant,” a song about a guy at a crossroads who is “hellbound and determined,” a place Earle has been to and back from. It was a fitting close, I suppose, from a guy who has been in and out of some tough spots in his life over the past 25 years and who has the stories and the songs to prove it.
http://www.fileserve.com/file/ZWUZp9f