Review: Steve Earle & the Dukes, O2 Academy

The Mastersons aren’t just key players in the headliner’s band but an excellent outfit in their own right. They played a beauty of a support slot: half a dozen nuanced tunes delightfully executed and played with skill, verve and no little sense of humour.

Chris Masterson (acoustic and vox) and Eleanor Whitmore (fiddle, acoustic and vox) opened with Anywhere but Here, a sprightly little side driven by a relentless guitar and jaunty fiddle with gorgeous harmonies.

As for the rest of the set, well, it was a heart-warming confection of folky, country-ish tunes craftily underpinned with a sassy rockabilly attitude, particularly in Masterson’s guitar solos.

The pair were equally at home taking leads – both have delightful voices – but they really flew when their voices intertwined and danced around each other.

The music was sparse, even lonesome at times, but still had warmth aplenty. Percussion was triggered to provide drive and the pair were at ease with each other, but their casual demeanour couldn’t disguise their instrumental prowess.

The subject matter of the songs equalled the players’ considerable chops. Fight, written from the perspective of eight years of married life, was a wry take on their relationship: “…cause I don’t wanna fight with anyone else but you”.

Folk-revenge song Don’t Tell Me to Smile was inspired by a frankly bizarre piece of heckling that inspired Whitmore to produce a pretty but pointed tune (and a t-shirt slogan).

The song was as charming as its genesis was hilarious, but with a steely put-down of idiots at its heart.

The heckle? Some buffoon spending a show trying to get Whitmore to smile whilst playing the fiddle, easier said than done apparently.

When all present thought the harmonies couldn’t get any sweeter or the playing any tighter, the Mastersons closed their set with a cover of Sorry You’re Sick (Ted Hawkins).

This was a masterful (sorry) rendition: impeccable; with powerful vocals, keening fiddle and beautifully strummed guitar – all topped off with a stinging solo. A raucous response from the crowd drew huge grins from the band and left an audience full of equally massive smiles.

The Steve Earle & the Dukes set at Ramblin’ Man featured Copperhead Road played in full and in sequence.

This show, however, was built around their latest LP (So You Wanna Be an Outlaw) and a selection of tunes from Earle’s illustrious career.

Oh, and an evergreen cover good enough to match the much loved and revered, well, cover. The set was supersized: over two hours of passion, power and quality that allowed the songs to breathe and the band to shine.

Hell, the band didn’t just shine, they burnt down the barn.

Steve Earle has always oozed integrity, and demonstrates it in ways both large and small. So tonight he took the trouble to give the Mastersons a fulsome introduction, and at the start of his own set revealed that the whole tour was plastic bottle free – the band all sported rather fetching metal bottles for their refreshments, (so kids, boycott your favourite band until they follow suit).

This time around there was little chat between songs as he led the band through the set at breakneck speed – the band were on fire from the get go.

The busy room took a while to ignite – a slow fuse crowd that was initially subdued but gradually began moving, hollering and singing as more familiar tunes were played (the first half dozen were from the new waxing).

The set gave the Dukes ample opportunity to demonstrate their versatility, equally at home with pure country sounds (My Old Friend the Blues, Looking for a Woman), country, verging on southern, rock (Copperhead Road, a hefty Hardcore Troubadour) and a wonderful blend of country and punk-folk (Johnny Come Lately, Galway Girl). Oh, and Olde-Tyme Celtic-Hillbilly (Dixieland).

They also mixed the lot up for their own unclassifiable concoction of genres and tropes; evocative of other artists but never derivative.

So Taneytown mixed up the country with the rock and ended up as a menacing mix of Neil Young and Tom Petty (RIP), whilst Acquainted with the Wind was garage RnB as played by a honky-tonk band.

The set was full of judicious selections linked together beautifully, ebbing and flowing with changes in mood and tempo; style and pace, and tunes linked together lyrically or musically and oft times both.

Stand out selection? Difficult to pick but the run of I Ain’t Ever Satisfied, I’m Still in Love with You and You’re the Best Lover I Ever Had certainly hit the spot for many.

Tunes from hard won experience, superbly constructed and delivered to elicit empathy from the listener.

Fixin’ to Die gave the band chance to kick out the heavy blues, a pulverising head banger that was followed by the final tune of the main set, another shrewd pairing as the band cranked out a version of Hey Joe that for once didn’t just ape the Hendrix version or politely tiptoe round the original (presuming anyone can prove who actually did record the original).

Rather it was a brooding, menacing mid-paced version, the twin guitars giving it some weight and Masterson teasing the solos before letting rip with his own transcendent take on the solo.

Earle fooled with the tune too, allowing that he needed to go “…way down south, way down Mexico way…before that asshole builds his wall”. Cue massive cheers, and booing that certainly wasn’t directed towards the stage.

Whilst Earle might have been the focal point, the Dukes propelled the set powerfully through the heavier numbers and subtly though the quieter, lighter moments.

Masterson was sublime throughout – pretty picking coupled with delicate fills and runs on the countrified material and ballads, but plenty of solid riffs on the rockers. In fact he was a flying V and a pair of spandex trousers away from qualifying for Download at times.

Meanwhile, Whitmore shone on fiddle and mandolin and her backing vox sweetened many a song. Her fiddle on Still in Love With You was pure heaven and oh boy, did she sing the ass off when she took her turn to lead.

Kelly Looney provided the bottom end on “both kinds of bass”: his work with the electric was forceful but when he came forward with the upright he knocked out a phat bottom end that easily matched the amplified four string.

Brad Pemberton knew when to sit back and when to thump, his drums both the drive and the bedrock for the rockers whilst his subtlety shone on the light cuts – master of the less is more school of percussion.

Ricky Ray Jackson’s weeping steel was an excellent counterpoint to Masterson’s twang (he outright stole Walkin’ in LA from the rest of the band) and his accordion work was its match.

Unusually Earle addressed the crowd at length only the once: prior to the well-earned encore. Oh, but there was a lovely heartfelt introduction to a moving, powerful Jerusalem that linked the current conflict back to his experience in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

Over some beautiful acoustic he built up to explaining how he’d not yet written about you-know-who (this guy in case you’re wondering). It’s all about timing: he wants to write an LP aimed at Trump supporters, not his opponents.

Counterintuitive for sure, but as he said, it’s pointless “preaching to the choir”. Dixieland, Ben McCulloch and The Girl on the Mountain all made for a contemplative encore – an ending that beautifully closed a superb set. Steve Earle & the Dukes are on rare form and it was a pleasure and a privilege to see them at work.

All photos by Shona Cutt