His beard may be greyer and his hair somewhat thinner, but Steve Earle’s performance this evening lived up to the standard of his many visits to Ireland over the past three decades. It’s the final date of his The Alone Again Tour and Earle is in sparkling form. His vocals, guitar, and mandolin work are outstanding, aided in no small measure by a sound engineer whose input results in a crystal-clear sound.
Earle’s choice of support act on the tour is the Edinburgh-born singer songwriter, Roseanne Reid. Her apprenticeship as a young artist learning her trade included attending Steve Earle’s Camp Copperhead songwriting workshop in Upstate New York in 2016. Their relationship developed from there, resulting in Earle sharing vocals on the song Sweet Annie, from Reid’s debut album TRAILS. The invitation to open for Earle on his current tour has given Reid the perfect opportunity to introduce her music, including material from her recently released album LAWSIDE, to a wide audience. The quietly spoken Reid takes full advantage tonight, playing material from both her latest album and debut record to a full house. Support slots can be challenging, but from her opening song, All I Need, she plays to pin-drop silence. Also included in her set are Couldn’t Wish More For You from her new album and I Love Her So from her debut album. Given the rapturous applause at the end of her thirty-minute set, Reid has undoubtedly won over a host of new admirers.
Earle’s setlist is a perfectly balanced selection of material from his two-dozen album back catalogue, alongside several poignant covers. He opens with Shane McGowan’s If I Should Fall From Grace With God (‘one of THE greatest songwriters, I’m singing this one because when he does no one can understand a fuckin’ word he’s saying’) and bookends the show one- and three-quarter hours and two dozen songs later with Jerusalem.
Now She’s Gone is, tongue-in-cheek, dedicated to ‘what’s her name, wherever she is’ and is followed by Goodbye (‘same girl, different harmonica’). In conjunction with Earle’s good humour throughout are two emotionally charged songs that are performed back-to-back. Introducing Harlem River Blues, he tells of his ongoing anguish and devastation since the accidental death of his son Justin Townes, explaining that his tragic demise was a result of fentanyl-laced cocaine. Also recalled is the passing of Jerry Jeff Walker (‘one of my original teachers, alongside Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt’) with his inclusion of Mr. Bojangles, a song Earle tells us he has been playing since he was fourteen years old.
Explaining the backstory to It’s About Blood, he speaks passionately about the twenty-nine lives lost on April 5, 2010, following an explosion at the Upper Branch coal mine in West Virginia. Other highlights include Guitar Town, The Devil’s Right Hand and Taneytown and the back-to-back raw blues of You’re The Best Lover I Ever Had and South Nashville Blues. Saving the best for last, he picks up the mandolin and finishes with crowd-pleasers Copperhead Road and Galway Girl, boasting that the latter will be his legacy after his day (‘even if people will probably think some Irish fucker wrote it’). He encores with two songs, Billy Austin and the aforementioned Jerusalem, ending what has been a spectacular and memorable return to Ireland by one of our most cherished adopted sons.
Review and photos by Declan Culliton