STURGILL SIMPSON at the Horseshoe Tavern, Tuesday, June 24. Rating: NNNNN
There are a handful of country artists who still adhere to the old style of things: you are a vessel for your music, you are not a spectacle, you are, at best, the sum of the show you’re able to provide. Sturgill Simpson is one of those old-school souls, road-built to give the audience what it desperately asks for. And there aren’t many dogs with these kind of tricks left.
Over 90-plus minutes, Simpson let the music do the talking, with songs from his two outstanding outlaw country records, plus covers of Sad Songs And Waltzes by Willie Nelson and Lefty Frizzell’s I Never Go Around Mirrors.
The semi-hostile honky-tonk crowd at the ‘Shoe was quelled completely by Simpson’s tunes – stage banter was at an all-time low – and his backup musicians’ country pickin’ prowess. His band was next-level: at one point he exited the stage for about seven minutes, leaving them to solos that most country artists nowadays couldn’t possibly have handled.
The encore, including the staple I’d Have To Be Crazy and a warped cover of T. Rex’s Bang a Gong (Get It On) completed the excellent set.
They do it again tonight.
music@nowtoronto.com | @MattGeeWilliams