by Julian Spivey
American Aquarium, one of the best live bands you’re ever going to see … period!, made their way back to Little Rock’s White Water Tavern on Sunday, March 20 for night one of a two-night stand at the venue, which has played a large role in the band’s success, but they hadn’t performed at since 2015.
​
The place holds a special place in American Aquarium’s frontman B.J. Barham’s heart as he mentioned in a previous show, I attended at The Revolution Room in Little Rock that the White Water Tavern was really the first venue outside of the band’s home state of North Carolina to make the band feel at home.

American Aquarium’s audience has continued to grow over the years, and I think it’s sort of outgrown the White Water Tavern size-wise (it’s a small venue, but it truly is a magical place to see a live show, as Barham said on Sunday night), which is probably why it’s been so long since the band has performed at the venue. The previous two times I’ve seen them were at the Rev Room.

Barham has proven himself to be one of today’s best songwriters with lyrics full of hard truths and crushing realities and the bands songs are terrific on record – if they weren’t nobody would want to see them live anyway – but his intensity as a performer just adds a whole other life to the songs when you see the band perform live. The only artist I’ve ever seen give as much on stage is Bruce Springsteen and Springsteen simply ain’t human.

American Aquarium kicked the show off on Sunday night with “Casualties,” from their 2012 album Burn.Flicker.Die, and there’s not much of a better way for a traveling rock band to open up a night of fantastic music than with a song about being a casualty of rock & roll.

The band went through many of their fan-favorites on Sunday night spanning the entirety of their discography, which goes back to 2006. Among the biggest receptions from the audience of loyal A.A. fanatics were “Cape Fear River,” “Nothing to Lose,” “The Long Haul,” “The Luckier You Get” and “Wichita Falls.”

My personal favorite A.A. song is “The World Is on Fire,” from the band’s excellent 2018 album Things Change, which is when I truly became a fan of the band after only hearing a couple of their songs previously. “The World Is on Fire” really hit upon some things that the country was going through around the changing of the White House from the Obama administration to the Trump administration and it’s always a huge moment for me when performed.

The one-two punch of “Losing Side of Twenty Five” and “Wolves,” off the group’s 2015 album Wolves really fired the crowd up, though I can honestly say there wasn’t a moment from start-to-finish when the crowd didn’t seem completely into what was happening on the tiny stage.

Barham did an excellent job at throwing in some slower tunes midst the barrage of absolute rock & roll chaos like “The Day I Learned to Lie to You” and “Man I’m Supposed to Be,” which were really touching.

One of the highlights of the night was a story Barham told the crowd of how when the band first started out, they had to play a lot of weddings to make money and how they weren’t a great wedding band because they don’t have many love songs and just aren’t the “wedding” vibe. So, they got successful enough to where they could charge a “fuck you” amount of money to perform, so hopefully they’d never have to again – but lo and behold came a rich man from Indianapolis who wanted his son’s favorite band to perform at his wedding and they relented for the “fuck you” price. Barham told of playing “’Til the Final Curtain Falls” as the first dance song and when the bride realized what the band was and how she wasn’t going to get her first dance to Tyler Childers’ “Lady May” she threw a huge fit right then and there in front of everyone. Barham told the audience one thing they needed to know about him is he’s a very petty man and so the next song he played at that wedding was “Lonely Ain’t Easy,” with opening lyrics: “The only thing certain is we end up alone/to pick up the pieces of our once happy home.” The band then performed the song live for the White Water crowd. The only thing that would’ve been better is if he’d played the bride “I Hope He Breaks Your Heart” right then.

Hearing the band’s “Ain’t Going to the Bar Tonight,” off the 2009 album Dances For The Lonely, in a small bar setting was quite the live concert moment. It was also special hearing “Rattlesnake,” with its reference to the White Water Tavern in the lyrics.

The band finished off their epic set with fan-favorites “I Hope He Breaks Your Heart,” one of the truly great “fuck you breakup songs,” and “Burn.Flicker.Die,” which is an absolutely killer way to end a set.

Despite the fact that “Burn.Flicker.Die” would’ve made the perfect concert ender, Barham came back out on stage joined by organist/pianist Rhett Huffman for a touching performance of “One Day At A Time,” about Barham’s sobriety that’s now eight years strong and how he’s thrilled to hear his sobriety has helped some of his fans find their own.

The excellent band with Shane Boeker on lead guitar, Neil Jones on pedal steel guitar, Alden Hedges on bass and Ryan Van Fleet on drums returned to the stage for a performance of the riotous “Katherine Belle” to end the show.

One of the great things I’ve found about American Aquarium is they always bring killer opening acts on the road with them. When I first saw them at The Rev Room in 2018, they had Cory Branan, one of my favorite singer-songwriters opening for them. Last year at The Rev Room they brought along Gabe Lee, who put on a helluva performance. Last night at the White Water Margo Cilker, who’s going to be someone you’re going to want to pay attention to if you haven’t checked out her debut album Pohorylle already, opened. Cilker is a much talented singer-songwriter who’s already dropping jaws with tracks like “That River,” “Flood Plain” and “Barbed Wire (Belly Crawl)” off her debut. Her final performance of her set on Sunday night was “Tehachapi,” which is my favorite track off her album,” which she was joined by the American Aquarium boys on, and it absolutely killed. Cilker also performed some stuff that isn’t on her debut album that all sounded great and hopefully will be on an upcoming release. If you haven’t given her a listen yet, please do. 

by Julian Spivey
The Academy of Country Music Awards held its 57th annual ceremony on Monday, March 7 and with the Album of the Year honor going to Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album the ACM voting body loudly admitted it doesn’t take racism and racist slurs very seriously.
​
Barely over a year ago Wallen was the center of controversy when a video of him using the “N-word” was leaked to TMZ just a few weeks after the release of his album. The controversy temporarily put a halt to Wallen’s career with many radio stations pulling his songs from airplay and he was deemed ineligible for ACM and CMT Awards in 2021 and from any non-collaborative categories at the CMA (Country Music Association) Awards.

Despite radio and these organizations putting the artist on hiatus his album immediately skyrocketed to the top of the Billboard albums chart, where it remained for many weeks, and became 2021’s highest-selling album. While those in charge of radio plays and country music awards penalized Wallen for his racist slur his fans (and people believing themselves to be sticking up for free speech) screamed loudly, “We don’t care. We like him anyway.”

Wallen has apologized for his racist slur on multiple occasions and reveled to ABC’s “Good Morning America” in July of last year that he checked into a rehabilitation center after his “incident,” though it was likely more for his alcohol problem.

Many to this date don’t feel Wallen has properly made amends for his transgression. Personally, I don’t think a damn thing happened to him. If anything, he grew more popular because of his racism. He said the “N-word” and immediately flew to No. 1. And it’s at this point someone is going to say, “Morgan Wallen is not a racist.” But if you casually use racist language, I don’t know how else to view you.

With the ACMs voting body voting to give Wallen one of the night’s biggest honors (Album of the Year has always been a music awards show’s biggest honor in my opinion) it’s saying we don’t feel his racism was a big deal. We believe he’s made amends and it’s time for him to come back into the spotlight. Even if he never actually went anywhere and had the biggest selling album of the year. It’s disgusting that in 2022 a music award voting body could make such a statement that racism doesn’t mean that much to them. That it doesn’t bother them.

It's also a damning statement to black fans of country music and for perspective black fans of country music. How can you not feel let down by the country music community when it honors as man with such an award just 13 months after he was caught on camera using the “N-word”? Genres of music need diversity to properly grow into the future and with one name read off an award envelope the ACMs said Wallen, and his racism are more important to them than any of those black artists and black fans. That’s despicable.