​The Turnpike Troubadours brought their brand of red dirt country music to Simmons Bank Arena in Little Rock, Ark. on Friday, February 24 for their second concert of 2023 and their first in Arkansas since the band announced they were going on an indefinite hiatus in 2019.

The band returned to performing music in April of 2022 and performed 33 shows last year.

Friday night’s concert in Little Rock was a co-headlining show with The Avett Brothers, which struck me as a bit off when the pairing was announced. They aren’t too dissimilar to make it a really strange concert, but they are different enough with Turnpike being more honky tonk country music with Americana-style songwriting and Avett Bros. being more indie folk that it was a small head-scratcher. I’m not sure how much overlap there is between the fan bases and I wasn’t sure what kind of crowd I’d be walking into on Friday night, but it didn’t take more than a few seconds into the first Turnpike song to realize it was primarily at Turnpike audience.

The Turnpike Troubadours wasted absolutely no time getting into the swing of things on Friday night. My wife, Aprille, and I had collaborated on a list of our favorite Turnpike songs for this website in anticipation of the show and the band played four of our top five songs within the first five songs of their set (“The Mercury,” No. 4 on our list, didn’t make the set for the show).

The band kicked off their set with “Every Girl,” a fitting choice as it’s the first track on their 2010 album Diamonds & Gasoline which saw the band initially take off in the independent and red dirt country music subgenres. They continued with two more tracks from that album, “7 & 7,” my personal favorite song of theirs, and “Shreveport.”

The band would then go into their nostalgic, story song “The Bird Hunters,” from their 2015 self-titled album, which truly shows off vocalist and main songwriter for the band Evan Felker’s skills at essentially placing short stories to music. “The Bird Hunters” is my wife’s personal favorite Turnpike song, so we might have been satisfied with those first four songs alone on Friday night. It would surprisingly be the only performance of the night from that terrific self-titled release.

But Friday night was a bit of a homecoming for us and I’m sure many other longtime fans of the band prayed and hoped and dreamed they would one day get back together. Hopefully, it was a baptism for the many fans whom no doubt came to find and love the band’s music during their hiatus, of which I’m sure there were many on Friday because this band wasn’t filling arenas before their hiatus.

The band would continue their set with “Good Lord Lorrie,” from 2012’s Goodbye Normal Street, which ranked No. 1 on the aforementioned list my wife and I published on Friday before the show – we both ranked it as our second favorite Turnpike song, so it averaged out in the top spot.  It was certainly one of our favorite performances of the evening, but really that whole first five songs may have been the greatest concert run I’d ever seen had I not just seen Bruce Springsteen & the E Street band do “Badlands,” “Thunder Road,” “Born to Run” and “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” six nights before it in Kansas City. Sorry, country music fans, but nothing can top that foursome in a row by “The Boss.”

“Good Lord Lorrie” would be one of four songs from Goodbye Normal Street performed during the evening. The others were fantastic performances of “Gin, Smoke, Lies,” “Before the Devil Know We’re Dead” and “Morgan Street.”

Nearly half of the band’s set on Friday night came from their de facto debut Diamonds & Gasoline. The band released their debut Bossier City in 2007, which is out of print, and I only have a copy via a download the band offered in a bundle deal on their website when I believe the self-titled album was released.

Among the Diamonds & Gasoline tracks included the night’s first three songs, “Whole Damn Town” (a crowd favorite), “Kansas City Southern,” one of my favorites which was written by bassist R.C. Edwards, and the main set ending “Long Hot Summer Day,” a John Hartford-penned track that’s one of the few songs ever recorded by the band that they didn’t write.

The band’s most recent album was 2017’s A Long Way From Your Heart, which came out after I had last seen the band at The Revolution Room in Little Rock that same year (though they did perform three or so tracks from it that evening). “Pay No Rent,” a stand-out from that album, but it’s one of the songs they did that ’17 night at The Rev Room. So, my favorite cut from the album on Friday night turned out to be “A Tornado Warning,” which is my favorite track on the album with its supremely realistic telling of a beautiful day altered but not necessarily in a bad way by stormy weather. The group also did “The Winding Stair Mountain Blues” off the latest album, which I must admit was the song I knew the least on the evening – the only one I didn’t even act like I could fake my way through singing.

Something that band has always done that was nice to see continue on Friday was giving Felker a moment to shine on his own – this time with the title track from Diamonds & Gasoline, which is an absolutely lovely love song about a guy who’s not sure he’s good enough for his love but will give everything he has. Then the band gave Edwards a chance at the vocals on a nice cover of one of my favorite Dawes songs, “All Your Favorite Bands.” This typically would’ve been the time in the past for Edwards to perform one of his own writes but the choice of a song that features the lyric, “may all your favorite bands stay together” was too perfect for what was likely a reunion for the band and many of its fans.

The band performed a three-song encore of “The Housefire,” “Something to Hold On To” (both off the latest album) and then finished the evening with “1968,” from Diamonds & Gasoline. It was a serviceable encore for sure, but the truth is the band had pretty much done all of the fan favorites (or at least mine) already by that point.

This was my fifth time seeing the Turnpike Troubadours live with three of the previous times being at one of my favorite venues, the small club/honky tonk style The Rev Room. I must say the vibes were just different on Friday night in an arena. It’s terrific for the band that they’ve formed a fan base and interest so large that they must play larger venues these days, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it wasn’t as exciting and intimate as seeing them much closer (and much cheaper) in a smaller crowd of fanatics. Sharing the band with thousands of folks in an arena is awfully cool too, but the sound probably wasn’t as good as the smaller venues.

Ultimately, though, there wasn’t enough time to focus on the venue with all the wonderful nostalgia flying around and being thrilled one of our favorite bands was back together with Felker, Edwards, Kyle Nix on fiddle, Ryan Engleman on guitar, Gabe Pearson on drums and Hank Early on steel guitar and guitar all sounding like they hadn’t missed a day together.  

The Avett Brothers have never been an act that I’ve really gotten despite trying multiple times because they’re similar in genres to other bands and artists I really enjoy. I felt many of their songs and lyrics were a bit pretentious. I have to say after listening to some of their most played tracks leading up to the show and seeing them perform in person I get the appeal a bit more now. I still hate the song “Vanity” quite a bit, but songs like “Laundry Room,” “Murder in the City,” “Ain’t No Man” and “I and Love and You” (which initially grated on me a bit) are pretty cool.

The Avett Brothers song I find myself liking the most is “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise,” which really fills up a packed arena nicely.

The group is filled with immensely talented musicians as well, including stand-up bass playing by Bob Crawford that truly thumped against all of our chests in the building. Scott and Seth Avett do a good job switching out lead vocals and performing multiple instruments apiece with Scott on guitar, banjo and piano and Seth on guitar and piano.

I was perhaps more taken with the performance of The Wood Brothers, who performed for about half an hour before The Avett Bros. starting right at 6:50 p.m. before much of the arena was filled. The Wood Bros., a trio featuring Oliver Wood on vocals and guitar, his younger brother Chris on upright bass and Jano Rix on drums, were really energetic – especially Chris with his dance moves – performing their American roots rock with wonderful performances of “Postcards From Hell,” “Happiness Jones,” “The Muse” and my personal favorite of their set “Alabaster.” If you’re not familiar with The Wood Brothers please check them out.

by Aprille Hanson-Spivey & Julian Spivey

20. Bossier City
“Bossier City,” originally recorded on the group’s hard-to-find 2007 debut of the same name and re-recorded for 2015’s self-titled album, is a fun, harmonica-filled song about a man gambling and drinking his money and cares away. Because after all, “What Mama don’t know won’t hurt her.” This song has always been a fun one to sing along to at a bar scene concert. They’ve gotten too big for those venues now, which is great, but also a shame because songs like this are perfect in that environment. The lyrics are catchy, but it’s really the harmonica that makes the song. AHS

19. Down on Washington 
Turnpike Troubadours’ sophomore release (the first one they really hit with) Diamonds & Gasoline (2010) is such a pivotal album for us as Turnpike fans that we have eight of the album’s 12 tracks on this list. “Down on Washington,” the first of those eight on this list, tells the tale of a man falling for a woman he absolutely should not be falling for – my reading of the song is it’s a stripper – and he knows it. The chorus to the song is one of the many catchy and fun ones from this album to sing aloud at their live shows. JS

18. Long Hot Summer Day
This is one of Turnpike’s most popular songs and one of the very few that Evan Felker didn’t pen himself. It was originally written by John Hartford and released in 1976. It’s the first song I remember hearing from the group, on 2010’s Diamonds & Gasoline, so it holds a special place in my heart since they are my favorite band now. It’s about a barge worker on the Illinois river doing back-breaking work. It’s not a lyrically deep song – just describing the work, but it’s a fun melody, making it a favorite for fans. AHS

17. Time of Day
One of my favorite Turnpike songs, “Time of Day,” on their self-titled 2015 album, is just as sweet as honeysuckle. It’s a cute love song that’s as southern as the lyrics, “Hillbilly girl just as sweet as wine / Grew up in the thicket like a muscadine.” The man just wants a “minute of your time of day,” clearly out of her league. Evan Felker is truly southern, so the lyrics just hit beautifully with his drawl. My favorite lines: “Well I never go and fall in love too quick / Never have and never will now / Well that’s the kinda liquor that’ll make a man sick / You try to fool me into thinking that you’re so refined / But you’re the kind of liquor to make a man go stone blind.” AHS

16. Diamonds & Gasoline 
“Diamonds & Gasoline,” the title track of the group’s 2010 breakthrough album, is one of the sweetest, laid back and stripped-down songs ever written by Evan Felker. It tells of a love that’s pure, but the narrator doesn’t know if he’s good enough for the girl of his dreams but would do anything to make it work out if he could just get out of his own head. It’s pretty much just Felker with a guitar but it’s lovely in its simplicity. JS

15. Blue Star
This fast-paced song chronicles the joy loved ones feel about a man coming back from war and ending his military service. It must be hard to hang it up – though we don’t hear it from the military man himself in the song – but it’s clear from lyrics like “We all know just who you are / Put your saber on the shelf / And we’ll take down the ole blue star.” Military families often hang a blue star on their doors while a relative is serving. It’s a unique spin on a military song, one that’s a little more celebratory than sad. AHS

14. Easton & Main
On a song like “Easton & Main,” originally released on the band’s 2007 debut Bossier City and re-cut for their 2015 self-titled album, you want to hear that mournful fiddle. It’s about a man who has left his heart in Tulsa, on the Cain’s Ballroom floor where he met the love of his life. This country boy has high hopes to win her heart, but it’s never known if he actually does. It’s kind of a love letter to Cain’s Ballroom, a popular venue in Tulsa, Okla. AHS

13. Pay No Rent 
“Pay Not Rent,” off the band’s most recent album A Long Way from Your Heart (2017), is a tribute to Evan Felker’s aunt Lou Johnson, who ran the Rocky Road Tavern in Okemah, Okla., Felker’s hometown where he moved back to in 2012. The song, co-written with songwriter buddy John Fullbright, is a terrific gift to a woman who touched so many lives – Felker wrote it the night before her funeral to play at the ceremony. JS

12. Kansas City Southern
“Kansas City Southern,” off Diamonds & Gasoline (2010), is one of my absolute favorite Turnpike songs to hear live. The song, written by bassist R.C. Edwards, tells of all the girls who got away from the narrator in a really fun, propulsive way that demands you dance along to it. The song is one of my favorite Turnpike choruses and features terrific guitar playing from Ryan Engleman and fiddle from Kyle Nix. I’m a bit bummed it ranked so low on Aprille’s personal list that it couldn’t crack the top 10 – but I know she feels the same about my ranking of “The Bird Hunters.” JS

11. Whole Damn Town
It would really be hard to live in a small town with your ex. Brutal in every way, especially if that ex is popular, out and about in the same haunts you like to go. Evan Felker paints that picture in “Whole Damn Town,” on Diamonds & Gasoline (2010), particularly his heartbreaking almost kind of screech on the lyrics, “Well, your worn-out favorite pair of jeans / Oh, I remember everything.” It’s the only point of the song he kind of switches his tone and it’s done beautifully. AHS

10. Wrecked
“Wrecked,” off Goodbye Normal Street (2012), is a fun heartbreak songs. It plays back the downfall of a relationship that blossomed as teenagers until life got in the way. It talks about how despite the “love or fight” nature of their love, the narrator was still “blindsided in plain sight.” It’s a song for anyone who has that heartbreak where one person screwed up and wrecked it all. AHS

9. The Funeral 
I think “The Funeral,” off Diamonds & Gasoline (2010), might be the Turnpike Troubadours’ best story song – which is saying an awful lot. It’s a perfect short story set to music and expertly crafted by Evan Felker and Mike McClure (who produced the album) with excellent symbolism and scenery. It tells the story of a family black sheep who returns to his hometown for his daddy’s funeral. Personally, I think it’s a top-three song for Turnpike – but my better half doesn’t seem to dig it as much as I do, hence it barely cracking the top 10. JS

8. A Tornado Warning
“A Tornado Warning,” off A Long Way from Your Heart (2017), is my favorite track off the group’s most recent album. Not to sound like a broken record, but the vivid imagery in Evan Felker’s songwriting is the true highlight here with lines like: “you ran out to roll your window up/light rain falling on your hair/your tan legs checkered from a folding chair.” It’s such a common thing, but the kind you rarely see captured in song. The guitar solo by Ryan Engleman and the fiddle playing by Kyle Nix are among the best from both throughout their tenure in the band. 

7. Gin, Smoke, Lies
The cheating song is pretty much the quintessential country song. Bonus points if the artist can make it lyrically unique. It’s honestly a tough task. But “Gin, Smoke & Lies,” off Goodbye Normal Street (2012), meets that high bar with the narrator singing about how all he smells is cheap perfume “and gin and smoke and lies.” He’s pretty much done, but wants to know the truth, so the angry pleading in the chorus of “Well if you’ve been true / You better look me in the eyes” captures it well. Not going to lie – the Evan Felker/Miranda Lambert affair kind of makes the song a bit awkward now. But not every song has to be biographical, so I’ll still love it for what it is, ignoring that reality. AHS

6. Before the Devil Knows We’re Dead 
“Before the Devil Knows Your We’re Dead,” off Goodbye Normal Street (2012), is one of my favorite Turnpike Troubadours songs to see the band perform live. It’s one of their most raucous recordings and the “devil may care live life to its fullest” theme really hits hard, especially in a smaller venue among like-minded music lovers before the group rightfully blew up following their hiatus. JS

5. The Bird Hunters
"The Bird Hunters,” the lead track off the band’s 2015 self-titled album, is my personal favorite Turnpike Troubadours song. And it proves how much of a writing genius Evan Felker is because the song is on the surface about hunting and I’ve never been hunting – nor do I care to go. At a deeper level, the song is about performing the task at hand when your mind is absolutely in another place. In this story, it’s the narrator and his childhood friend Danny on a hunting trip, his friend’s way of helping him get over his breakup. Felker does such a good job setting a scene and diving right into the human condition with lines like, “With my hands around a Belgian made Browning / My mind on the lines of her face.” There’s lost love, loss of self with a shot of hope at the end – literally. Shooting the bird at the moment where he remembers his ex will be home on the Fourth of July, betting they’ll dance together. It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking song. AHS

4. The Mercury
“The Mercury,” off the band’s self-titled 2015 album, takes place in a dingy bar, with the familiar character Lorrie who captured the attention and admiration of both the narrator and a man named Jimmy. Lead singer Evan Felker is pure genius when it comes to descriptive lyrics. We know exactly who these characters are with lines like, “Lorrie laughs like she just don’t care / Got a red bandana in her raven hair” and Jimmy, “Hayseed dressed up like James Dean.” As for the narrator, he’s in it to win Lorrie’s heart. The song plays out with the intensity of a bar scene with lyrics like “Her kind of loving is a little like a fist fight” and “Well it’s throwback punks and daytime drunks / And PBR’s and stouts.” In the end, it seems the narrator wins her heart. The song is sexy, it’s gritty and it’s a lyrical tapestry of a dive bar. AHS

3. Every Girl
There’s a good chance the first Turnpike Troubadours song you ever heard was “Every Girl,” the first track of their 2010 release Diamonds & Gasoline, which while it wasn’t the band’s first album was the first to really see traction and set them out on a path to become perhaps the gold standard of red dirt country music acts. Co-written by Evan Felker and John Fullbright, who spent a short amount of time in the band at its inception before setting out on a Grammy-nominated career of his own, the song is beautiful in its descriptions of all the things the narrator’s love interest reminds him of. JS

2. 7 & 7
“7&7,” from Diamonds & Gasoline (2010), is my personal favorite Turnpike Troubadours song – it averages out at No. 2 overall on the list. “7&7” just puts me in a nostalgic state of mind where I may not have lived the life Evan Felker’s narrator does in the song, but I still identify with the “I had no clue I’d be the boy who your mama warned you about” lyric. I love the imagery of bumping into your old flame at a grocery store and seeing how much they’ve changed and you feeling like the same old kid you used to be. It’s a devastating story but also somehow life-affirming in the end as if he’s ultimately saying, “no regrets.” JS

1. Good Lord Lorrie
“Good Lord Lorrie,” off Goodbye Normal Street (2012), is our No. 1 Turnpike Troubadours song. Both Aprille and I had it ranked as No. 2 on our individual lists, which allowed it to average out into the No. 1 spot overall. I think in many of Evan Felker’s best songs there’s this fast-burning, ill-fated romance at the center of them and “Good Lord Lorrie” is perhaps the best example of this theme. Lorrie and our narrator feel like a perfect fit amidst all the reasons that say they shouldn’t be together and ultimately will see that they don’t wind up together. I love the vivid description of the lyrics like how “De Queen is dry so I bought us both a bottle in downtown Broken Bow.” Images like this show how Felker could’ve been a great novelist had he not been a songwriter. The simplistic chorus of “Good lord Lorrie, I love you, could it go more wrong” repeated is one you can’t help but shout at the top of your lungs when seeing the band live in concert. JS

by Julian Spivey
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band brought the greatest show in rock ‘n’ roll to the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo. on Saturday, February 18 for nearly three hours’ worth of musical bliss.
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Kansas City was the eighth stop on the Rock Hall of Fame group’s 2023 tour, which has found itself rocking audiences throughout the southern states while dealing with COVID-19 working its way through the band. The full band hasn’t performed since the February 7 show in Hollywood, Fla. with guitarist Steven Van Zandt, multi-instrumentalist Soozie Tyrell, guitarist Nils Lofgren and saxophonist Jake Clemons all missing shows. Patti Scialfa, guitarist and Springsteen’s wife, hasn’t performed with the band since the Hollywood show and kind of feels like a part-time member of the E Street Band right now.

Clemons was out for the Kansas City show, his second show missed due to COVID-19. Springsteen joked that he was back at the hotel “eating cheeseburgers and watching pornographic films” before leading the packed crowd in a “Fuck COVID” chant mimicking the old Country Joe McDonald and The Fish “FUCK” chant from Woodstock.

Eddie “Kingfish” Manion, usually a member of the band’s horn section, stepped in admirably to fill Clemons’ shoes at the saxophone. Springsteen told the crowd that Manion had been in the backline of the stage for 40 years with the band before now getting his chance to shine. Shine he did indeed. Saxophone is such an integral part of the E Street Sound, thanks to the legend that was Clarence Clemons (Jake’s uncle), and Manion killed it all night long.

The band kicked off the evening with a terrific performance of “No Surrender,” from 1984’s Born in the U.S.A., which includes one of many favorite Springsteen lyrics: “Well, we busted out of class/Had to get away from those fools/We learned more from a three-minute record, baby/Than we ever learned in school.”

I know there are times I feel like I’ve learned more from three-minute records than I ever did in school. Saturday night was one of those nights. 

Next up the band would play “Ghosts,” one of four tracks they would play during the night off their latest album 2020’s Letter to You. Technically, the entire band would play two songs off that record while Springsteen would perform the other two solo acoustically – one of which was “Last Man Standing,” with a touching story before it about how it was inspired by him being the final living member of his very first band The Castiles in the ‘60s.

The great thing about a Springsteen & the E Street Band show is they’re going to spread classics from most of their biggest records throughout their show. On Saturday night this included memorable performances of “Out in the Street” from The River (notably the only song off that double album probably because their previous tour in 2016 featured it in its entirety), “Wrecking Ball” from the album of the same name and “The Rising” from the album of the same name. Springsteen and the band would also perform a jazzy, electric version of “Johnny 99” from Nebraska.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Springsteen’s first two albums – Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent & The E Street Shuffle. Because of this, it’s somewhat surprising and disappointing the group didn’t perform a single track from ‘Greetings’ (they haven’t all tour), despite it celebrating its 50th anniversary in January. The group did, however, perform three tracks off ‘E Street Shuffle’ including fantastic versions of “Kitty’s Back” and “The E Street Shuffle.”

In late 2021, Springsteen released Only the Strong Survive, a solo effort that sees him covering his favorite R&B and Soul tracks (the second covers album of his career after 2006’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions). On Saturday night, the band played my personal favorite track from that album “Nightshift,” a Commodores song from 1985 paying tribute to legends Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson.

Among my favorite performances of the main set included “The Promised Land,” off 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town,” which includes another of my favorite Springsteen lyrics: “The dogs on Main Street howl/’Cause they understand/If I could take one moment into my hands/Mister, I ain’t a boy, no, I’m a man/And I believe in a promised land.” I also loved “Because the Night” with Lofgren absolutely shredding on guitar complete with his patented spins. A special moment for me, personally, was the performance of “Backstreets,” from Born to Run, a song I hadn’t seen in either of the two previous times I’d seen Springsteen & the E Street Band – Kansas City in 2012 and Oklahoma City in 2016 and holds nostalgic feelings for me. The opening piano solo on “Backstreets” is probably my favorite Roy Bittan moment in the entire E Street Band repertoire. It’s absolutely cinematic.

Springsteen would end the main set with “Badlands,” off Darkness on the Edge of Town, which would kick off the absolute greatest four-song run of any live show I’ve ever attended, and I don’t think it could possibly ever be beaten. It’s so much fun screaming lyrics like “Poor man wanna be rich/Rich man wanna be kind/and a king ain’t satisfied ‘till he rules everything” in unison with Springsteen and an entire arena filled with people experiencing the same euphoria.

The encore began with my all-time favorite song (not just my favorite Springsteen song, but any song ever recorded), “Thunder Road,” which is the opening track to Springsteen & the E Street Band’s magnum opus Born to Run from 1975. The harmonica opening, the sax solo at the end performed perfectly by Manion, maybe my all-time favorite lyric: “it’s a town full of losers and we’re pulling out of here to win.” It was epic. Maybe my all-time favorite concert moment, but then again that could also be the first time I ever heard the band perform it in 2016.

Following “Thunder Road,” Springsteen went directly into “Born to Run,” my second favorite song of his – and probably his most famous and beloved track. It was a moment of bliss for the entire audience, which you could see rocking their butts off because the great thing about an E Street Band encore is the entire arena’s lights come on letting us all see our brethren sharing moments of ecstasy together.

After “Born to Run,” was the seven-minute epic “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” from The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, which about near killed me. I’m only 35, but at this point in the greatest four-song grouping of any concert I’ve ever attended, I had almost rocked myself to death. Springsteen is 73 years old, and all of his long-time bandmates are in their 70s and they looked like they could’ve gone on all night. It’s truly amazing, almost unfathomable how this group can wring this much energy out of their shows at their age – and they’ve been playing three shows at almost three hours weekly.

This was only the halfway point of the encore – a Springsteen encore is basically another entire hour of music, not a piddly one-song or two-to-three-song encore done by most bands.

The band continued on with “Glory Days” and “Dancing in the Dark,” from Born in the U.S.A. I noticed this was the first time I’ve seen Springsteen in which he didn’t pull a woman out from the crowd to dance with during “Dancing in the Dark.” I wonder if that’s a casualty of post-pandemic (but disease still swirling) life?

As has become custom at Springsteen shows, the penultimate song of the night – the final one with the E Street Band – was “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” which has basically become the E Street theme as it tells the origin story if you will of the group and features a moment of tribute to fallen band members Clarence Clemons (who died in 2011) and Danny Federici (who died in 2008).

It's time to shout out the “heart-stopping, pants-dropping, house-rocking, earth-quaking, booty-shaking, Viagra-taking, love-making, legendary E Street Band,” as Springsteen likes to introduce them. Van Zandt (72) and Lofgren (71) on guitar, along with Springsteen, is a three-headed monster that really propels the entire show. Max Weinberg (71) on drums keeps the beat going all night long with such rapidity that it’s amazing his arms haven’t yet fallen off. Bittan, who is lovingly referred to as “The Professor,” brings beauty and grace to the group on keys. Garry Tallent (73) on bass is the coolest cat of the entire outfit equipped with his dark glasses and stoic stance that looks statuesque amidst the chaos surrounding him. Such a bassist move. Tyrell, the newest full-time member of the group and the youngster at just 65 years old, is a terrific multi-instrumentalist who adds a fourth (rhythm) guitar to the stage for much of the show while occasionally showing off on violin. These are the best in the business and on this night joined by Manion on sax they were perfect.

Saturday night was more than just a rock show for me – like every Springsteen & the E Street Band show it was damn near a spiritual moment. And it was a moment I didn’t know if I’d ever get the chance to experience again making it so much sweeter. The band hadn’t toured together since 2016 due to Springsteen embarking on his award-winning and highly successful one-man Broadway show and then the obvious pandemic that shut down live music for close to two years for most acts. Plus, with artists in their 70s and aging, you never know when the last time is going to be.

Saturday night might be the last time. This might be their last tour (something I don’t think Springsteen would ever announce). If it was the last time for me personally I’m eternally grateful for everything this band has given me and will continue to give me with their 50-plus years now of life-changing music.

Springsteen finished his K.C. show with a solo acoustic performance of “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” the final track on Letter to You. Performed in a slow, almost spoken-sung manner you could tell Springsteen got as much from us in the audience as we were getting from him – everything. It was his letter to us. An “I hope to catch you again down the line, but if not … I’ll see you in my dreams” moment. It was beautiful.

by Julian Spivey
Conservative pundits flooded their Twitter timelines late Sunday night and into Monday with cries about how Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ performance of their Grammy-winning “Unholy” about midway through the 2023 Grammy Awards telecast was evil, satanism and satanic ritual.

Smith, Petras and a crew of dancers performed the song dressed in blood-red outfits and Smith even had devil horns adorning the hat they wore during the performance of lust and debauchery.
This led to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tweeting “This is … evil. Don’t fight the culture wars, they say. Meanwhile, demons are teaching your kids to worship Satan. I could throw up.”

As of the time of this writing, it has not been confirmed whether or not Cruz actually vomited.

Conservative blogger and podcaster Matt Walsh accused Smith of performing a “satanic ritual” during the performance. He said: “It’s not surprising to see a satanic ritual at the Grammy’s. Satanism is the worship of the self. Much of modern pop music is satanic in this sense. Leftism is satanism. The only change is that now they’re being more explicit about it.”

Many people, including politician and former music video director Robby Starbuck, remarked about the appearance of a Pfizer commercial airing directly following the performance as a further sign of Satan’s involvement in the proceedings. After all, Pfizer is one of the companies shooting Americans up with “Covid vaccines” in an effort to turn all of us gay.

Normally, we here at The Word, wouldn’t make too big of a deal about what politicians and political pundits had to say about music performances on an award show.
But, for once we agree with those crazy motherfuckers.

There seems to be irrefutable proof that Smith’s satanic ritual opened up some sort of portal at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday night during their performance of “Unholy.” How else can you explain these things?

Bonnie Raitt, a blues singer, wound up winning Song of the Year for her ballad “Just Like That,” despite the fact that nobody even knew she existed before the performance. She claims to have been around since 1971, but if fans of Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Adele, Lizzo and Harry Styles have never heard of her how could that possibly be true? Blues singer, you say? Didn’t the first one of those sell his soul to the devil for the gift of playing guitar? They’re all devil worshippers.

And that’s not the only thing. Everybody knew Beyonce was going to win Album of the Year for her pop culture-changing Renaissance album. The other nine nominees were simply there for show. And yet when Grammy’s host Trevor Noah opened up the envelope to reveal the winner as Harry Styles for Harry’s House it was a complete shock to the system. Nobody ever awards white males with major honors and yet here he was accepting the night’s biggest one instead of the single greatest performing artist in the history of the world.

Then as soon as Styles finished his speech the telecast ended with a star-studded rap performance (one of two genres beloved by Satanists everywhere – the other one, of course, being heavy metal) that featured Jay-Z rapping about how God turned him from a drug dealer into a billionaire while sitting at a table mocking the last supper. Does Jay-Z think he’s Jesus now? Everybody knows that’s Ye’s thing.

But if it weren’t for all that there was one last thing I saw following the Grammys that made me believe with absolute certainty Smith had brought the darkness to the Grammys … a photo of Ben Affleck smiling.

If you missed Sam Smith & Kim Petras' performance of "Unholy" on Sunday night check it out below and feel tinglings you've never felt before. 

The Grammy Awards are billed as “music’s biggest night” but the 65th annual ceremony on Sunday, February 5 felt a bit small.
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I was growing weary as the telecast crawled toward the finish because I knew it was running long and it hadn’t felt as fun as in recent years – believe it or not the pandemic year two years ago is one of my favorites Grammy telecasts.

And when the night’s biggest honor – Album of the Year – was presented by host Trevor Noah to Harry Styles and his producers for Harry’s House my first thought wasn’t of shock or bewilderment or anger, but “will the Grammy’s still be a thing tomorrow?” Will the Grammys even exist next year?

And, the answer is, of course, they will still exist. But are they ever going to matter again? That’s to be seen, but it feels like the Recording Academy had to right a perceived wrong tonight by giving Album of the Year to Beyonce for Renaissance, especially after the shocking loss to Beck’s Morning Phase in 2015 and losing again to Adele’s 25 in 2017. I don’t mean to be submissive to Styles, Adele and Beck. It isn’t my opinion the Grammy Awards have mistreated Beyonce – after all this very night she became the winningest artist in the history of the awards. The Grammys love Beyonce, but she tends to win genre honors with smaller voting bodies than general field categories with much bigger voting bodies.

But there is the perception of a large crowd of Grammy viewers and music fans that the Recording Academy has disrespected Beyonce. There’s also the perception – and this one probably holds more water – that the voting body doesn’t honor enough people of color in Album of the Year. I know full well Jon Batiste won the award last year and Bruno Mars won in 2018, but when artists like Beyonce and virtually any and every hip-hop artist are being passed over for the night’s top honor it will at least have the appearance that something may be off about the voting body. It’s been almost two decades since a hip hop group won Album of the Year (OutKast in 2004 for Speakerboxxx/The Love Below) and there hasn’t been an African-American female take the top honor since before the new millennium (Lauryn Hill in 1999 for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill). The Lauryn Hill and OutKast albums are the only two hip-hop albums to ever win Album of the Year.

Beyonce’s fan-base, which is one of the biggest and most protective of their favorite artist, of any in popular music would’ve been pissed no matter who won the honor instead of Beyonce, but I believe much of the anger and disappointment in the Album of the Year winner would’ve tampered down had Lizzo won for Special or, especially, had Kendrick Lamar (another artist often seen as snubbed for this award) had won for Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. Even if Bad Bunny had won for Un Verano Sin Ti it may have come off to many like, “well, at least it’s not another white person.”

I don’t want quotas for music awards or any other artistic awards. I don’t believe those angered that Beyonce or another person of color failed to win Album of the Year want them either. We just want there to seemingly be more proof of fairness and diversity within the voting body of the Recording Academy. ​

The biggest shock of the Grammy’s telecast on Sunday night was clearly Bonnie Raitt winning Song of the Year for “Just Like That.” I remarked on social media as soon as she won that the fan bases of Beyonce, Adele, Taylor Swift, Lizzo and Harry Styles were going to completely burn down Twitter. It seems things indeed got heated, but I’ve tried to ignore most of that.
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Raitt was as shocked as anyone else when her name was read by First Lady Jill Biden as the winner. I was shocked too. Just earlier in the day on this website’s Facebook page, I told a fan of the song who was hoping it would win the honor that: “this is one of those cases where the nomination is the win.” But I knew deep down that the Grammy’s voting body does love its aging legendary performers – it’s why I predicted Willie Nelson to win multiple country genre awards over much younger competition and he did. We’ve seen it before for decades with artists like Steely Dan and Ray Charles and Robert Plant and Herbie Hancock winning Album of the Year decades after their main relevance in popular culture. We’ve seen it less in Song of the Year, but for anyone who pays a lot of attention to trends within these awards and this voting body, it shouldn’t be too much of a shock. But it comes off as a shock to fans, especially younger fans, because they don’t know Raitt. She’s not played on modern-day radio. She’s not going to be on popular curated Spotify playlists. You’re unlikely to hear her music become a trend on TikTok. And, thus to many people, she doesn’t exist. So, when she wins a major honor that beloved artists like Swift, Beyonce and Adele were perceived to be favorites for it instantly becomes a controversy. It instantly has people crying foul or rigged or paid off.

Some things that it may really mean:

A. It’s a great song. And it is. Just because it’s not flying up the Billboard Hot 100 or leading to TikTok dances doesn’t mean it’s not as qualified to win the honor as “As It Was,” or “About Damn Time” or “All Too Well” or “Easy On Me” or “Break My Soul.” 

B. You know what all of those songs I just mentioned have in common? They’re all by major pop stars that came out during the same eligibility period and likely all have fans in the voting body unable to choose between those five songs. So, essentially this may have been a case of vote splitting. All five of those young pop star songs are terrific, but how do you pick which one is actually the best? I would’ve voted for Swift’s “All Too Well,” personally, but I can see why others would want “Easy On Me” or “Break My Soul.” This leads to the possibility of a non-pop song garnering a large number of votes from the remaining segment of the voting body. And you know who fans of rock, country, Americana, folk, blues are all likely to vote for – Bonnie Raitt. Why? Because she’s a rock, country, Americana, folk, blues legend. 

C. This is where some minor criticism of the Recording Academy voting body might come in. Maybe the voting body is too old? I’ve seen articles stating that the Recording Academy has been working to up its percentage of voters under the age of 40 since 2018 but haven’t found exact numbers on the average age of voters. The Recording Academy has also been trying to up its number of female and diverse voters since 2018 when only 21 percent of its voters were female and only 28 percent of its voters were people of color. Even with the Recording Academy focusing on these numbers it’s unlikely they’ve caught up considerably in five years. Older, white male voters are going to like Raitt more than any of those other nominees – it’s to borrow Raitt’s winning title - just like that. 

Star Power
In my lede, I remarked about how music’s biggest night felt a bit small. The faces in the crowd certainly weren’t – the camera panned to Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Adele often. Music stars don’t get any bigger than those three. Kendrick Lamar was also out there somewhere – though the camera doesn’t seem to want to find him as much as those others. Beyonce, Adele and Lamar were all among the most nominated artists of the year and Swift was nominated for one of the night’s biggest honors Song of the Year.
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None of those artists performed on the telecast. It led to an unfortunate lack of star power for a show that ran too long despite feeling like it had fewer performances than usual.

Who’s to blame though? I know for a fact the Recording Academy and producers involved in the CBS telecast asked both Adele and Swift to perform and both declined. I would have to assume the same offers were given to Beyonce and Lamar.

I’m not sure what more can be done than asking.

So, I have to put this on those artists. If you’re among the most nominated performances of the year you should feel obligated to perform for your fans and to keep us from looking like Ben Affleck ran out of his Dunkin’ coffee too soon and has to sit through one of his wife’s work events. Side note: That’s freakin’ Stevie Wonder rocking his ass off on that stage. How about not looking like you’re being tortured, Mr. Affleck? 

Telecast
How did this telecast that seems to be on the button every year go almost 30 minutes over its supposed runtime? It’s especially confusing when it seems like there were fewer performances than in a typical year. Maybe it’s that lack of star power that made the show drag? There were decisions the producers made this year that I didn’t realize were so wrong for the show at the beginning – like the roundtable of fans debating why their favorite artist should win Album of the Year – but when it’s 10:20 p.m. (central time) and I’m seeing a woman explain why Coldplay should win Album of the Year it’s occurred to me that it was a bad idea. Honestly, if I’d been having more fun with the performances (or if they had done more and fewer awards) I probably wouldn’t have worried about the runtime of the telecast so much.
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One issue I continue to have with the Grammys is their disrespect toward the rock and country genres. Not counting the in memoriam tributes performances to Loretta Lynn and Christine McVie there was one rock performance and one country performance during the entire show. The rock performance was Brandi Carlile (whom some would debate as a rock artist, but screw that) performing her Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance winning (both awarded before the broadcast) “Broken Horses” toward the very beginning of the show (second performance) and the one country performance was Luke Combs, who was nominated for multiple honors but failed to win any, performing “Going, Going, Gone” very late in the show. Were winners Willie Nelson and Ozzy Osbourne even invited? Or do we just give awards to the oldies and not actual performance slots? Also, not having a single rock genre award in the primetime telecast is so wrong. Carlile, Osbourne and Wet Leg all won multiple honors – but the producers didn’t feel they were television worthy – which seems ridiculous seeing as how Carlile has now performed on three of the last five telecasts and blown viewers away each and every time.

Favorite Performances: 
I usually rank all of the Grammy Awards performances from best to worst, in my opinion. But I don’t really think that’s fair this year, especially given Bad Bunny opening the show with “El Apagon” and “Despues de la Playa.” I think it’s great that Bad Bunny got the chance to open the show and showcase Spanish-language music on the big stage, but as a non-Spanish-speaking viewer/listener, I don’t think I can properly rank his performance compared to others.
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Also, I don’t think there was a bad performance of the 16 that appeared on the telecast. Harry Styles’ performance of “As It Was” was surprisingly lackluster – he didn’t seem completely there all night (some online debated whether he was sick or high) – but I still like the song and it wasn’t horrible, just not his usual energy.

Here are my favorite performances of the evening: 

1. “Broken Horses” by Brandi Carlile
This might be the third year out of the last five that Brandi Carlile has had my favorite performance of the telecast. I am a fan of hers – finally got to see her for the first time in Dallas last summer – so as long as she gives her usual 110 percent and sounds as terrific as she always does there’s a good chance she’s going to be near the top of my list.

And … that’s the only modern song you’re going to see on this list. Sorry. I’m a sucker for classics and tributes.

2. “Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder & Chris Stapleton
I knew Chris Stapleton, one of the greatest modern country musicians, would be performing with Stevie Wonder, one of the greatest anything, anywhere, anytime, ever musicians, on the telecast. However, I was somewhat surprised when that song turned out to be “Higher Ground,” from Wonder’s 1973 album Innervisions. It’s both the 50th anniversary of that classic and this was part of a longer tribute to Berry Gordy whose Motown/Tamla labels recorded Wonder. This performance was absolute fire with Wonder on keys and Stapleton on guitar and the two swapping incredible vocals.

3. “Coal Miner’s Daughter” by Loretta Lynn
For my money, Loretta Lynn may be the greatest female performer in the history of country music and her death last year was properly used as the kickoff for the telecast’s in memoriam segment with Kacey Musgraves performing her most famous hit “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” Musgraves performed using Lynn’s famous guitar with her name on the fretboard and was perfect on the number.

4. 50 Years of Hip Hop
I’m not a huge hip-hop fan, but ever since I heard Questlove of The Roots – who has to be one of the smartest guys in music – was curating a 50th anniversary of hip-hop segment for the show I knew it would be hot. The segment included a ton of legends from the genre with The Roots playing behind them including LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Public Enemy, Ice-T, Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, Lil Wayne, Salt ‘N’ Peppa, Big Boi, Nelly, an absolute fire spitting Busta Rhymes, and many more performing snippets of their hits for probably 10-15 minutes. The only reason it’s not higher on this list is I’m just not a huge fan of medleys, but to properly do this you’d need an entire evening of a show – which LL Cool J may have alluded to coming in the future – and I couldn’t help but feeling “what if Jay-Z performed (he’s in the building), what if Kendrick Lamar performed (he’s in the building), what if Dr. Dre performed (he’s in the building), what if Eminem performed, what if Drake performed (he’s pretty much boycotting the Grammys for the reasons we led this piece off with), what if Snoop Dogg performed?”

5. “Songbird” by Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt & Mick Fleetwood
​The one time I teared up during the telecast was at the very end of Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt and Mick Fleetwood performing “Songbird” in tribute to late Fleetwood Mac member Christine McVie. I think it was because it was on top of the Loretta Lynn tribute and Quavo paying tribute to his own nephew Takeoff who was murdered last year and was part of their hip-hop group Migos. It was a lovely performance by Crow and Raitt on the vocals of a beautiful song.