Most of the first half of Steve Earle's three-hour performance was dedicated to the expert bluegrass voicings of the Del McCoury Band, who backed Earle on his recent album The Mountain. The silver-haired Del McCoury presides over his quintet with an air of perpetual delight. Part of the art of bluegrass is the use of a single microphone for all voices and instruments, so each musician has to lean into it to make his contribution heard. They cover a spectrum of moods and styles: if Back Up And Push might have been pilfered from The Beverly Hillbillies, Body And Soul was rich and soulful, while Get Down On Your Knees And Pray was a gospel number.
Earle's songs sound, if anything, better in this drumless, all-acoustic setting. He started with a selection of solo tunes, best of which was the Leadbelly-ish South Nashville Blues. Never afraid to harangue his listeners, Earle delivered a lecture about the evils of capital punishment before previewing his new Death Row song, Over Yonder, a close relative of his Dead Man Walking piece, Ellis Unit One.
The pace picked up when Earle was joined by the band for a blast through some of his most memorable tunes. They whipped up a fiery railroad beat for Mystery Train, and Del added a high, piercing harmony to Leroy's Dustbowl Blues. The pin-sharp rapport in Lonesome Highway Blues was a small miracle of collective time-keeping. Much of the joy of the performance lay in the musicians' glee after they'd pulled off a particularly tricky instrumental passage.
Earle could probably have played for another two hours, but he stayed long enough to sing his gripping civil war saga, Ben McCulloch, and kissed off an astounding evening with a valedictory Down The Road. Bluegrass is hip!
