Too Much Living Is No Way To Die

Son Volt & Peter Bruntnell At City Winery (2023-07-19)

It was sometime in 1993 while perusing the Neil Young listserve, “HyperRust” on my old i386 computer and my 14,400 dial up modem (in the middle of the night since this was the only time I could get on the internet being as I didn’t have a dedicated phone line), I stumbled upon this new band (to me at least) called Uncle Tupelo that was creating an amazing cross polination of country and punk music and I was imediately floored. Right away I joined this other listserve called Postcards From Hell which was about all things Uncle Tupelo. I would soon unsub since I discovered almost immediately that the people on PCFH were pretty much completely insane. I would get back on Postcards many years later and can honestly say that I’ve met some amazing individuals and forged some great friendships all over the country (if not the world) as a result. But as usual, I digress.

Sadly, shortly after I “discovered” Uncle Tupelo, the band disintegrated. I would soon find out that the band was morphing into two new bands. One, led by Jeff Tweedy would be called Wilco and the other led by Jay Farrar would be called Son Volt. 1995 saw both bands release thier debut LPs and they were both fantastic. Wilco’s A.M. and Son Volt’s Trace would be released about 6 months apart and to this day are amongst my favorite music released by either of these bands which depsite a plethora of drama, lineup changes and stylistic alterations are still going strong today.

All of that being said, as much as I like A.M., I absolutely love Trace. With no hyperbole whatsoever, it is probably my favorite albums from the 90’s and again with no exageration, one of my all time favorite albums PERIOD. Needless to say when it was announced earlier in the year that Son Volt would be touring the album in its entirety along with their latest LP, Day Of The Doug, Jay’s homage to Doug Sahm, it was a clear no brainer that these shows would be a must for me to catch. With 2 nights scheduled at City Winery here in New York City along with 2 more at the hallowed ground known as Levon’s Barn up in Woodstock, NY I figured I would catch pne show at each of these venues. (For the Friday night show in Woodstock there would be a strong contingent of PCFH people attending, including the man who holds the whole thing together, Dave Dewey).

Wednesday night’s show at City Winery was nothing less that fantastic. While I will be the first to admit that even though as a venue itself, City Winery isn’t at the top of my list, for no other reason than I’m not a big fan of sit down venues, I do have to say that CW is one of my favorite locales for photo shooting a show. The lighting is always superb and the sight angles from virtually anywhere in the room can’t be beat and for the most part as long as you’re respectful of the attendees, management lets you shoot at will.

Opening act Peter Bruntnell was an artist whom I had heard many good things about. And when I say “good” things, I really mean GREAT things. Sadly however, I was not familiar with his actual work prior to hearing him at City Winery. Suffice it to say, the great things which I’d previously heard were spot on and I have to admit my not including Bruntnell in my listening rotation over the years has clearly been a huge oversight on my part. He was a perfect opener, offering up an appropriate amount of chatter and a wonderful 1/2 hour set of singer songwriter Americana…a description I hate to use but one which none the less aptly fits the musical offerings of this Welshman via New Zealand, England, and Canada.

Jay Farrar and the current iteration of Son Volt (keyboardist/steel guitarist Mark Spencer, bassist Andrew Duplantis, guitarist John Horton, and drummer Mark Patterson) took the stage promptly at 9 PM with one of my favorite track off of the Doug Sahm album, “Sometimes You’ve Got to Stop Chasing Rainbows”. I should mention that this Day Of The Doug album is fantastic and without a doubt will be in contention for my album of the year. following “Rainbows” we were treated to another 6 songs from this new album and I have to say that Jay and the rest of the band sounded great covering these Doug Sahm staples. Jay’s voice fits these songs perfectly and Son Volt as a band truly do Doug’s various ensembles great justice. With the Doug Sahm part of the show completed, Jay (a man of very few words when on stage) explained how they’d planned on doing a 25 year aniversary tour of Trace but those plans were squashed by a little old thing called Covid, so we were getting the 28 year treatment.

Kicking off with album opener, “Windfall” was nothing short of transcendent, it being one of my all time favorite songs. The band would proceed with the rest of Trace in order. hearing the album performed live only solidified my love for these songs. At this point I should say that the sometimes surly Farrar seemed to be in very good spirits and this certainly helped with the spirits of the evening. It wasn’t until the band started up with “Ten Second News” that I truly realized how good they were meshing with one another. “Ten Second News” is a slow burner right out of the Neil Young songbook and on the album it doesn’t quite take off, but the way the band is currently performing it, this song kicked ass like nothing else in the amazing night of music. With guitarist John Horton trading licks on the bottle neck slide guitar with Mark Spencer on lap steel guitar, TSN was stretched out into free flowing stream of bending swirling and squelching slide guitars.Upon the completion of the Trace portion of the set we were treated to another handful of Son Volt songs from a smattering of the bands other albums. Closing out the set with “Reverie” off of 2021’s Electro Melodier, the band would return for an rollicking encore which was comprised of a cover of Tom Petty’s “American Girl” and to close the stelar evening off we were treated to Uncle Tupelo’s “Chickamauga”.

And just like that the evening was over. Son Volt had played for pretty much an hour and forty five minutes and each and every one of those minutes provided a feeling of comfort and bliss. Farrar is by no means a great showman, but none of that matters much when he and the rest of Son Volt can pull out a set jam packed with songs which directly hit you right in the heart. I can’t wait to do it all over again at Levon’s in a couple of days.