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Sturgill Simpson
Venue: DingwallsTown: Camden Town
Date: 29/9/14
Website: http://www.sturgillsimpson.com
And the winner is …
I'm not sure that Sturgill Simpson winning the award for Best Emerging Artist a few weeks ago at The Americana Music Association Honors and Awards show in Nashville got any more people through the doors at Dingwalls; a constant stream of positive national press, good reviews and the all-important appearance on Later … earlier in the year ensured that the 500 capacity Camden venue was packed for the opening UK date of his first European tour with band.
They had already experienced the delights of Scandinavian pricing "$32.00 for a cheeseburger … and it wasn't even a good cheeseburger" - the guy who had travelled from Norway to see them again was probably the only person who didn't think that Camden was expensive.
When Simpson had previously played in the UK he was on his own and, good as that was, things do sound better when you have a 21 year old behind you on drums (Miles Miller), a Johnny Depp look alike on bass (Kevin Black) and an Estonian guitarist (Luar Joamets) who gets sounds out of a battered tele' that are probably illegal; "You keep practising Jo," said Simpson after another impressive solo "one day you'll learn to play that thing". There'd likely be some kind of melt down if he got any better.
A lively band begets a lively audience and this one pushed, and occasionally went beyond, the boundaries. One inappropriate "Yee=haw" (is there ever an appropriate one?) was met with "don't be an asshole"and the request for Freebird (yes, really) got the middle finger of Simpson's right hand as a response.
There was the now usual mix of covers; opening with Willie Nelson's Sad Songs and Waltzes, closing with the Osbourne Brothers' Listening to the Rain plus Waylon's Waymore's Blues half way through. Then you've got the material from High Top Mountain and Metamodern Sounds in Country Music. Living the Dream, Turtles All The Way Down, You Can Have The Crown - all sounding that bit different to the majority of ears in the room given the electric accompaniment.
The consenus of opinion as we dribbled out was that something special had just been witnessed.
John 'The Jacket' Hawes
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