W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

Ben Nichols & Jared Hart at Crossroads (2025-01-04)

Ben Nichols has been making the trek up from Memphis to Garwood, NJ on a yearly basis (excepting the one Covid year) each January since 2018 and invariably for those who’ve been attending each year, it proves to be a wild, crazy, entertaining and oft-times alcohol fueled evening. Local Bayonne legend, Jared Hart is always a mainstay on the bill as well and as one who has managed to make it to each and everyone of these shows, I can attest that these shows almost always marks the commencement of the new year’s concert schedule.

2025’s show which took place on Saturday night was no exception to the rule. Hart took to the stage at roughly 8:30 PM and as ususal was the perfect opener. Jared actually released a new EP the previous day called The Condor which is an homage to his friend, Chris “Condor” Duffy who left this earth in early 2022. With a mix of these 4 new tunes along with older solo material as well as a smattering of Scandals and Mercy Union songs from year’s past made for a typically stellar set from Hart.

Which brings me to Ben Nichols and his headlining set. Like I’ve already said, I’ve attended each and every one of Ben’s Crossroads shows and these sets are always loose, unscripted and depending on the alcohol intake, rough around the edges. That being said, Saturday’s set from Nichols was different, like nothing I’d seen in previous years from him. After taking the stage, Ben was upfront about how exhausted he was, having just been on a whirlwind of a week. He and the rest of Lucero, first off drove 10 hours last week from Memphis to Chicago for their 3 night stint of shows. After their shows on December 29, 30 and 31st, they then drove another 10 hours back to Memphis where he proceeded to spend the next few days in the studio working on his forthcoming solo album (forecast to be released to at some point this summer). Followed of course by his flight that afternoon up to New Jersey. With a set comprised almost exclusively of requests coming from the audience, the night started out typically until a few songs into the set when Nichols was convinced to play “Texas and Tennessee”, which he started and couldn’t finish a couple of times. Forgetting both lyrics and chords, he would wholeheartedly appologize for scewing up and attributed this to not having consumed enough whiskey just yet. While he did have a drink on stage, it was noticeable that he did not have his customary (at Crossroads) bottle of Bullett with him on stage. For what its worth, he would revisit “Texas and Tennessee” much later in the set (as promised) and got through the tune without a hitch. Moving on, with his set, he would offer up a couple of new songs from the upcoming solo effort which proved to be equally troublesome for him. At this point, he confessed that he wasn’t sure what was going on. It wasn’t a matter of not enough alcohol and it wasn’t a matter of too much alcohol, so maybe it was his mind shutting down due to mental exhaustion. Nonetheless, Nichols kept on keeping on. With a constant back and forth dialogue between him and those of us in the crowd, no one seemed to mind his forgetfullness. And let me re-emphasize that despite these regular start and stops, I would venture to guess that no one in attendence took offense to these laspses in memory. On the contrary, it kind of lent itslef to a looser, more intimate feel for the evening.

When all was said and done, Nichols was on stage for a little over 2 hours and while we didn’t get a full 2 hours of music from him, we were certainly treated to that amount of entertainment and what was easily a night chock full of laughs and frolicment. That being said, as one might expect, Ben was his own harshest critic on the evening and he was visibly embarressed, apologetic and disappointed with his set which is a shame because I can attest that no one was in the least bit bothered by the performance.

Jered Hart Slideshow

Ben Nichols Slideshow