Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell 12/7/2015

I was pleased to catch up with this particular version of an Emmylou tour after missing a similar tour last time round. I did however catch the 'Wrecking Ball' tour last year which was superb. This time they were touring the new album which I had not listened to much but as ever with Emmylou the back catalogue gets a good airing as well. The gig started with a couple of classic songs in the first few selections, 'Return of the Grievous Angel' (with Rodney doing the Gram Parsons' part) and then shortly after 'Poncho and Lefty'. A couple of songs later another great song 'Invitation to the Blues' (a Rodney Crowell composition)and then They moved on to do a selection from the new album 'The Traveling Kind' with some tracks from in from their previous collaboration 'Old Yellow Moon'. The interesting thing was that while I was expecting to enjoy Emmylou's singing and Rodney Crowells performance, which I did, I hadn't factored in how good the two band guitarists were. Jedd Hughes on lead was fast, sweet and country in an Albert Lee'esque sort of way whilst Steven Fishell on pedal steel added a great country vibe too. And they played so well together feeding off each other and melding together very well. With the two acoustic guitars of Emmylou and Rodney plus bass, drums and keyboards the overall band sound was superb although the sound quality wasn't good on the first couple of songs until they fiddled with the mix. 'Tulsa Queen' (from 'Luxury Liner') was a highlight but perhaps the best song of the evening came shortly after which was the Rodney Crowell song 'Ain't Living Long Like This'. This had the band and in particular the guitarists belting out the rocking bluesy song and looking like they were enjoying it bigtime as well. The encore finished with the signature 'From Boulder to Birmingham' and then sadly it was all over.