Justin Townes Earle
Wednesday 26 November
Grace Emily


On arriving at the pub, I inadvertently missed the support act, Emily Ulman, but we did get in the back room in time for the start of Justin Townes Earle's set. He is a very tall man, who hides under a red baseball cap, but is not too shy to converse with the audience and explain his thoughts, experience, observations, and the inspirations for his songs. He is only 25 but has already lived a hard life. And, yes, he is the son of Steve Earle, but lets not get side tracked by that, his music has its own style.

Touring as a solo act, just his guitar and voice (an amazing voice that he's able to project but also use to sing soft when needed), the show he presented was very stripped back and low-key. Earle's playing and styles varied and included old school country, blues, folk, bluegrass, honky-tonk and swing, at times sounding like he had a back-up player up on stage with him. He played songs about girls, about leaving girls, about meeting girls, just being unlucky in love, travelling on trains, and growing up in Nashville, and some old country standards.

The set consisted mainly of songs from his 2008 release 'The Good Life' - Hard Livin', The Good Life, Lone Pine Hill, What Do you Do When You're Lonesome?, Ain't Glad I'm Leaving, You Can't Leave, I Don't Care and Ghost Of Virginia among others, which sounded great and were more dynamic than the recorded versions. Amongst the covers was a Townes Van Zandt tune, Mr Mudd And Mr Gold, and in addition, Earle also played a lot of new songs from his forthcoming CD, "Midnight At The Movies', which he recorded in Nashville and is due to be released in March 2009. As the set drew to an end, he stated that "if you don't like Waylon Jennings - then fuck off!" before playing a Jenning's cover. He also played a Replacements/ Paul Westerberg song, Can't Hardly Wait, as his second to last before finishing with Desolate Angel Blues, which was for his grandfather who brought him up but passed away in the last year, and all his shows since he has ended his set with this song.

The show Earle put on was an intimate one with an appreciative crowd, and all up he played for about an hour and a half with no encore. I had heard rave reviews and good things about this artist before seeing him and I wasn't disappointed. At the end of the set, it was one of those shows that you were glad you hadn't missed, and a highlight of 2008 most definitely! If he comes to our town again, don't miss it.

Julie Richards