Concert Review : William Elliott Whitmore and Frank Turner

Aug 12, 2010 Concert Reviews
Posted by Adam

On Saturday August, 7 the wife and I went to Detroit to see William Elliott Whitmore and Frank Turner at the Magic Stick.  Detroit is about four hours away from our house, so it may seem a little odd for us to be driving that far to see the opener of a show. Luckily the show was more of a co-headliner affair and we both thoroughly enjoyed Frank Turner as well.

We arrived at the Magic Stick early in the day before the music venue was open. However, there was a bowling alley, bar and restaurant downstairs. We each had a beer and later returned for some very good food before going upstairs. The actual venue is upstairs and seems to normally cater to heavy music. When we got upstairs I was quite impressed with my surroundings.

There was a large bar that was easily accessible in the back of the room, a bunch of pool tables (that thankfully remained unused during the show), a large dance floor lined with chairs, and a decently sized stage. Wondering outside we found the most impressive part of the establishment. They had a rooftop bar with tons of tables and a cool view of downtown. Other notes on the venue: the staff was very courteous and the sound was quite good throughout all of the sets.

Taking the stage to start the evening off was Flint, Michigan’s Empty Orchestra. They were an energetic Rock n Roll band that seemed to be really happy to be opening this show. Their set was completely original material and they did a good job of getting the crowd riled up. The highlight of their set for me was a song about coming to terms with living in small town Michigan, and I’ll be damned if I can’t remember the name of it. I would certainly check them out again if they make it down to my part of the country.

After the opener, William Elliott Whitmore took the stage, much to our delight. We are both huge fans of Whitmore’s and after seeing him live my wife may be contemplating divorce.

If you are not familiar with Whitmore, you should be. The best way I can think to describe him is a strange hybrid of the, the grittiness of Tom Waits, the soul of Bill Withers, the rawness of Roscoe Holcomb, and the attitude of The Ramones. After all of that, my description doesn’t really do him justice. On Stage he plays guitar, banjo and mics his boot for percussion really filling out a solo set.

Whitmore quickly began his set, playing three songs on the banjo right off the bat. Included in the banjo portion of his show was a favorite of mine “Diggin’ My Grave”. After putting down the banjo in favor of the guitar, Whitmore really began to feed off the crowd.

At various times he commented on how much he was enjoying himself and how great it was that the crowd came to see him play. At one point he led the crowd in blowing across the tops of their beer bottles to create some kind of bar room orchestra. Another amusing point in the middle of the in between song banter was when Whitmore asked about the Tigers, who were playing a home game that night, and the crowd expressed their indifference. Whitmore’s response of “The hell with the Tigers then” was quite funny.

Throughout the show, I was interested to see Whitmore’s mannerisms, he seemed very shy and at the same time completely in control of the situation. I’m not sure if it comes from the fact that he hails from a horse farm in Iowa, but it seemed that Whitmore would have been more comfortable outside just playing these songs to a few people and not the 150 or so folks that were in front of him. Fortunately for us, he has decided to go ahead and play these songs on stage, because damn are they good, especially live.

During the rest of the set, he played songs from all of his releases while focusing on last years’, Animals in the Dark. The high points for me were a rousing rendition of “Midnight”, my all time favorite Whitmore tune “Hell or High Water”  and a crowd pleasing “Lift My Jug”. Also of note was his cover of “Don’t Pray On Me” by Bad Religion.

Whitmore had not only met but exceeded our very high expectations.     Over all we were completely happy with the hour long set and would have been well pleased had the night ended right there but, we still had another set to go in the evening.

I had never heard of Frank Turner prior to purchasing the tickets to this show. I did some research on him, finding out that he was from England and played a form of punk/ folk. He has been getting a lot of publicity of late in and around the punk scenes on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to this tour he is scheduled to do a tour with Social Distortion and Lucero in the fall. I downloaded a couple of his records and liked what I heard even though this is not normally my favorite genre.

Despite the research, we were not sure what we were in store for. Well, out walked Turner and band. From the outset it was obvious that this crowd was full of Turner’s fans as they seemed to sing along to every lyric.

The most impressive thing I saw watching Turner was his complete control of the crowd. He was telling funny stories and engaging frequently in banter with those in the crowd. His energy was very punk rock, Bruce Springsteen. It was amazing. Turner was charming, talented, vulgar and seemed to be having more fun than anyone in the place.

He and his band ran through about five songs together with a highlight of  his song “Nashville, Tennessee”. His band then left the stage, so Frank could play some songs solo.

To begin the solo set, Turner brought a woman from the crowd to the stage to do him a “favor”. It was funny to watch as she stood not really sure what she was going to do but being thrilled to be on stage with him. Eventually he handed her a harmonica and told her she was going to play a solo. The ensuing song was high entertainment as he tried to get her to play into the mic and she eventually left the stage to a rousing round of applause.

Turner went on to play a few more songs solo before his band returned to the stage to join him. My favorite part of the solo set was a new song called “I Believe”, a tribute to Rock n Roll that he got the crowd to sing along to.

After reuniting with his band, Turner proceeded to torch the place with crowd favorites. While most of the songs were all new to me, once again everyone else was singing along turning the night into a party. Songs included were “The Road” which got perhaps the biggest reaction of the evening, “The Ballad of Me and My Friends”, and a punk rock infused spit in the face of aging, “Photosynthesis”  that closed the show and left me singing it for days.

As the band walked off, the crowd began the chant of one more song. Not wanting to let the fans down out walked Turner again. He then said, that because he had previously canceled a show in Detroit he was going to break his protocol and actually play an encore. Not only did he play an encore, it lasted four songs.

Needless to say, I walked away a Frank Turner fan. His energy level and just flat out fun songs had won me over and in the following week I have been constantly listening to his album, Love, Ire and Song.

We made it back to the hotel around one in the morning completely spent from the day and absolutely satisfied in the trip. I had a chance to talk to both performers after their sets and they were both quite personable. I am hoping to have both of them on the podcast in the future and videos from the show will be on Youtube as soon as I can get around to posting them.

Tags: concert review, Frank Turner, william elliott whitmore