Turnpike Troubadours Rock Rev Room

by Julian Spivey
True country music enveloped The Rev Room in Little Rock on Thursday night (Feb. 14) when the Red Dirt country group Turnpike Troubadours came to town.
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The band consisting mostly of musicians from Arkansas is lead by singer-songwriter Evan Felker, of Mena, one of the most talented songwriters in any genre of music right now. The band may not be known nationwide, but they’ve got the talent and the songs to be huge. Essentially they are a more country-sounding version of breakthrough Americana acts like Mumford & Sons and The Lumineers.

First off, I must thank the Morrilton, Ark. radio station KVOM 101.7 for introducing me to the music of the Turnpike Troubadours, because had I not stumbled across their fan-favorite “Long Hot Summer Day” on that station about a year ago I likely never would have been introduced to one of the best acts around today.

I knew after purchasing and frequently listening to their two most previous albums (of the three they have released), “Diamonds and Gasoline” (2009) and “Goodbye Normal Street” (2012) that the Turnpike Troubadours had beautifully written and performed songs, but I didn’t realize just how intense of performers they were until the show began. The passion and energy that they perform with is so contagious that it pervades throughout the audience to a point where every single soul in the joint is dancing and singing and stomping in pure captivation.

The Turnpike Troubadours have enough talent to be playing much larger venues than The Rev Room, but you get the feeling that they thrive on being a bar band. It’s a different character and it’s one that the group completely owns and embodies.

The Turnpike Troubadours opened up their raucous set with “Gin, Smoke and Lies,” the first single off of their most recent album “Goodbye Normal Street,” which instantly had the room of probably a few hundred dedicated music lovers on their feet and singing along. The fun never stopped from that point on for the remainder of the night as the Turnpike Troubadours performed into the midnight hour.

The performance that was likely the best of the night and also the one standout favorite among the crowd was “Good Lord Lorrie,” which Felker commented was written about a Southwestern Arkansas girl that he briefly liked. The song, like many of the band’s best, is a true to life portrait of relationships gone sour. Another similar tune, “Wrecked,” the group’s current single, was performed with the sarcastic caveat “Happy Valentine’s Day” by Felker prior to the performance.

There simply weren’t any poor performances during the night by the group as they rocked through tracks mostly from their last two albums including: “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” “Blue Star,” “Morgan Street,” “Every Girl,” “Whole Damn Town,” “Down on Washington,” “Kansas City Southern” and “7 & 7.”

At the very end of their set the group had the entire crowd shuffling and shaking to “Long Hot Summer Day,” which included fantastic fiddling by Kyle Nix and a nice harmonica solo by Felker. The entire group is immensely talented when it comes to their instrumental crafts, but the fiddling all night long by Nix left me, at least, with my jaw dropped and a couple of ‘damn, he’s good’ comments.

Following their set was an encore which featured the very special and surprising appearance by Americana performer John Fullbright, an original band member, who recently received a Grammy nomination for his solo effort “From the Ground Up,” in the Best Americana Album category alongside Bonnie Raitt, Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers and The Avett Brothers.

Felker performed “Easton & Main,” from the Turnpike Troubadours’ first album “Bossier City,” with just Fullbright accompanying him on mandolin. Following the performance Felker left the stage and let the remainder of the band perform the honky-tonker “Whiskey in My Whiskey” with bassist R.C. Edwards taking over the lead vocals. After this performance Fullbright was given the time to shine on one of his originals off of “From the Ground Up,” with the Troubadours playing backup on “Jericho.” Fullbright’s voice was incredibly strong proving why he was deserving of that Grammy nomination. The band then finished off the night with a rousing cover of Alabama’s “If You’re Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band),” which once again nicely showcased Nix’s wonderful fiddle sawing.

If there was only one slight disappointment of the night it was that the group didn’t showcase any of their softer, more acoustic sounding tunes like “Empty as a Drum,” “Diamonds and Gasoline” or “Evangeline.” But, I have a feeling that such performances in a small, rowdy-ish venue might have a way of losing an audience.

The Turnpike Troubadours show at The Rev Room had me in awe and saying ‘Wow!’ while I was walking out the door. The group perfectly captures small-town life and everything that defines the term Americana in their music. There aren’t many groups out there like this one, which makes it even more tragic that they aren’t widely known. For now the Turnpike Troubadours are a secret that we’ll keep to the small venues of the Midwest and South, but it’s a great secret that shouldn’t be kept for too long.