Steve Earle Live At Newburyport High School

Steve Earle with Allison Moorer August 15, 2008

Newburyport, Massachusetts

A few weeks ago when I stumbled across a flyer for the Steve Earle show at Newburyport High School I wrote about the overwhelming surprise that accompanied that moment. Almost anything would have been less a surprise to me at that particular time in my life. As I had mentioned, I spent the greater part of the spring and summer attempting to locate a venue where Steve was performing. Then, as I walked through the automatic doors into a local Shaws it was as if God himself had squatted in Heaven on High and dropped a magnificent deuce of good fortune upon me. Over the past couple of years or so I have become completely immersed in the Folk-Country-Rockabilly-Blues genre of which Steve is most often classified and includes others like the late great Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and many others yet the only live performances I had seen of these guys were on Youtube and DVD (Side note: I saw a former neighbor of mine from my days as a resident in Portsmouth, NH at the concert. I still have his copy of Heartworn Highways, and I guess in all honesty I don’t plan on giving it back. I’m an asshole.) Anyway, the concert kicked ass.

Ye Olde Stomping Grounds

First of all, I don’t know if anyone else has had the experience of seeing one of their favorite musicians of all time perform in their former high school. It is a strange thing indeed. Walking up to the show my buddy and I realized that we hadn’t been in the auditorium at NHS since we graduated, so in a way the concert was a sort of homecoming for us. Hard to believe that it has been 7 years since I graduated high school. However, any feelings of “man I’m getting old” were dispelled by the fact that we ended up being some of the youngest people there. A lot of “q tips” were in the house, or, white-hairs if you will. I’ll be honest this made me a little uneasy as I thought that the crowd would be a little “stiff”, and well, for lack of a better word, old. However, we did notice a number of cowboy hats and ponytail-beard combinations that reassured me that this wasn’t just some massive upper middle class night out to see what those rascally folk-country singers were all about. I feared that the show was going to be a sort of novelty to the crowd. Fortunately it wasn’t. The difference between this show and any of the others that I have seen (that I really remember) was that the power of the musicians performances and their amazing songwriting and storytelling literally had a way of silencing those in attendance, inducing a sort of surrender to the music and lyrics. I am used to rocking the fuck out at concerts, and this was different. Awesome, but different.

Steve Earle and his wife Allison Moorer...A mismatch of epic proportions.

What can I say about Allison Moorer. First off she is fucking Hot. I don’t know if you guys have seen Steve Earle lately, but the years have not necessarily been kind to him. I think he would be the first to agree. It has to be tough to be the opening act for a legend like Steve Earle and be a chick, and be hot, AND be the guy’s wife. But, she actually blew me away. She played a nice 45 minute set that included some originals and a couple of cover songs. I have to mention that a while back I reviewed the Patti Smith album “Horses” and I just didn’t get into it at all. I wrote at the time that maybe you had to be a chick to really get into it. I think that’s still true. However, Moorer’s cover of Smith’s song “Dancing Barefoot” was really amazing and so I can honestly say that now I kind of get it, a little bit, kind of. Also, it would be unfair for me to omit that I have a thing for women who play guitar and sing and are attractive (does any straight guy not?). I have become similarly entranced by the live performances of Alannis Morrisette and Eddie Money’s daughter. There must be male groupies out there. I wonder how you break into that line of work?

A young Steve Earle in Nashville, Tennessee

Steve played an amazing 2 hour set in which he spanned a legendary career and took turns on 12 string guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, and even a custom Martin Guitar with his name in it that he noted was “Pretty Fucking cool.” Indeed. He started the show with ‘Christmas in Washington’, and then moved into classic SE tunes ‘Tom Ames Prayer’, ‘The Devil’s Right Hand’, ‘Galway Girl’ (You may recall this song from the movie PS I Love you, if you too were forced to watch this with your significant other), ‘Guitar Town’, and ‘Goodbye’.

He added a DJ for the middle portion of his set which was an interesting touch. The guy basically just substituted for a drummer as Steve rolled through a few of his newer songs including his take on “Down In the Hole” which fans of HBO’s The Wire (Greatest TV Show of all time) will recognize as the theme music for the last season. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have preferred to have an actual drummer there. Either way, it did nothing to take away from the performance, although I suspect some of the older Folk purists may have soiled themselves to see Steve conjugating with Hip Hop.

Those of you who have seen Steve Earle perform live before, or have heard his interviews know that he is very outspoken on issues ranging from the Death Penalty, the War in Iraq, to Immigration. For what its worth, I understand that he has a right to talk about whatever the fuck he wants when its on stage but hearing musicians talk about politics of any kind during a performance makes me cringe a little bit. I was worried that it may get a little bit overwhelming given the current state of affairs in the US (and the World for that matter) and with the election coming up and all, but Steve kept things brief, personal, and heartfelt, which is about what we should be asking of our politicians I suppose.

Anyway, his discussion of his opposition to the Death Penalty led into the performance of the night. It was haunting and powerful, and I had never heard this particular song before:








I was happy to see the crowd give out several standing ovations to both Steve and Allison. The crowd even got borderline rowdy prior to and during Steve’s encore performance of ‘Copperhead Road’, which surprised me after my initial perceptions of those in attendance (except, of course, those rocking the pony tail-beard combo, I knew from the start that these men were badasses of the highest caliber). Overall it was a great night, and a concert I will never forget. I would definitely recommend seeing Steve play live if you get the chance. He is a true American music legend and one of the greatest songwriters living and performing today.