Concert Review : William Elliott Whitmore and Frank Turner

Aug 12, 2010 Concert Reviews

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

Concert Review : Peter Cooper and Eric Brace

Jun 11, 2010 Concert Reviews

I spent my entire weekend last week enjoying the music of Eric Brace and Peter Cooper. I attended two shows and in between recorded the second episode of the Broken Jukebox podcast (which should be posted this weekend) with them. The weekend was great, I got to hear some amazing songs, spend time with my wife and friends, meet some new people, and catch shows at two venues I had never been to before.

On Friday the wife and I dropped off the kids and began the four hour drive to Louisville, Kentucky. Despite the heat and the traffic, the drive down was a blast. We listened to some fun tunes all the way down as we cruised the highway. We arrived at The Rudyard Kipling with about ten minutes to spare.

The venue was interesting looking from the street, it looked almost like something you would see in a film about the Alamo. It was a large brick wall with an opening that led around the building on a nice wooden deck to the side where you went inside. Once inside the place was divided nicely. You walked in and to the right to the bar which was open and pretty large. If you were going the show you took an immediate left to a closed off room with quite a few tables and a small stage. On a busier night this set up would have been great for separating those wanting to hear the music and those who were only there to drink. It also allowed for the venue not to lose bar patrons because of the cover charge.

The show opened with a local kid, Sam Hadfield, solo on an acoustic guitar. He played an entertaining set, considering that the crowd was very small and he was there to open. His originals were good, and he covered “Tom Ames Prayer” and “Stack-O-Lee” which is always a good thing in my book. The highlight of his set was the songs he finger picked on the guitar, which he was very talented at. I think the set was about twenty minutes.

After a very short break Cooper and Brace took the stage. I had never seen Eric Brace before, having only been introduced to him recently through their joint record, You Don’t Have to Like Them Both, that was released in 2008. I was however very familiar with Peter Cooper.

I was immediately enthralled with the show, they started out with “Wait a Minute” and the harmony vocals were completely mind blowing. If I took nothing else away from my weekend spent with these two it would be that they may have been put here to sing with one another. The set was filled with tracks off of their album, a few older Cooper tunes, Last Train Home (Brace’s band) songs, and some very good new material from them both. Unfortunately the venue had another show going on and their whole set was over in an hour.

Highlights musically from the Louisville show were, the new Cooper tune, which I think is entitled “Champion of the World”. It is an autobiographical story of him becoming a singer and his daddy being a preacher. Another highlight was the Eric Brace penned “Tranquility Base”, a song full of questions for astronaut, Neil Armstrong. The lyrics and the harmony vocals during the chorus of this songs gave me and my wife goosebumps. They ended the set with their version of a song Cooper co-wrote with Todd Snider, “The Last Laugh” from his album The Excitement Plan. I am a huge Snider fan, but I have to say I think I like their version of the song a little better.

We left Louisville immediately after the show for a drive that seemed much longer the second time around. Although the show was short, it was a great time for the wife and I to get out for the night and the music more than made up for the long drive.

On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Brace and Mr. Cooper made their way to my hometown to do the podcast ( I promise it will be up soon). We all had a great time doing that and I learned quite a few things about exciting topics such as the best lima beans in the world and the best surviving 80′s metal band.

In the evening, my cousin and I headed up to Columbus (only 30 minute drive) to catch the second show of the weekend run. We arrived at The Red Door Tavern about an hour prior to showtime. A much larger crowd turned out for this show than the previous night and the venue was once again great. The place has a great restaurant and Guinness on tap. What more could you ask for? Like the night before the show was held in separate room from the main eating area, but this time there was a bar in the room where we were. The show is hosted by a couple friends of mine, Bob Teague and Chip Kobe who modeled it after the listening rooms you find all over the country. This made for a great house concert feeling in a public place.

There was no opener on this night and we were treated to two outstanding sets of songs from Cooper and Brace. With no time limit the show seemed to be more relaxed, with the in between song banter getting stretched out and the set list very much expanded.

I think they played damn near everything on their album and delved deeper into their respective catalogs as well as breaking  out some other killer covers. There were so many highlights to this show that it would really make this column ten times longer ( I know I’m smashing 1000 words already). We were treated to a few more new ones that will be included on Cooper’s upcoming release, The Llyod Green Sessions. Also included in the set were new tracks from the yet untitled new album from the two of them.

Specific songs that stood out were a song about a famous door man in Nashville that Cooper wrote with Don Schlitz, “Hendersonville”, Brace’s song about Johnny and June Carter Cash, Last Train Home’s “Anywhere But Here”, and their covers of Bob Dylan’s “Tonight I’ll be Staying Here With You” and Tom T. Hall’s “I Flew Over Our House Last Night”.

All I can say is that if you get a chance to see these two together live drop everything and do it. I was totally blown away by their on stage chemistry, their song choices and most importantly the amazing harmonies that they delivered. Their album is great, but it really doesn’t do them justice when compared the live environment. Both these shows were like invitations to sit in their living room and listen in on an intimate guitar playing, song singing, whiskey drinking night of fun.

You can find them both on Brace’s record label Red Beet Records . Go to a show, buy them a drink and sit back and enjoy.

Tags: bob dylan, concert review, don schlitz, eric brace, johnny cash, peter cooper, red door tavern, todd snider, tom t. hall