Jun 13
Jason Boland & The Stragglers
The Neighborhood Theatre
Charlotte, NC
June 11, 2010
Jason Boland & the Stragglers paid a visit to Charlotte and it was good to see this great TX/Red Dirt act in town again. The last time they visited, they played at a much smaller venue, so it was good to have them at the larger Neighborhood Theatre. I do want to mention the opening act - the John D Hale Band - they're a band from Jackson, MO that you should check out if you get the chance. Their latest album, Lost, was produced by Cody Braun and David Abeyta of Reckless Kelly along with everywhere-man Adam Odor. I was really impressed by the newest addition to the band – guitarist Ryne Jackson, who was just flat out awesome on the lead guitar. The played a handful of songs, evenly split between their own tunes and a few covers. My fave was Outlaw Groove, which is the band’s “salute” to the current state of country music. Google it - rather hilarious.
It was then time for Boland & the Stragglers to hit the stage. Simply put, their show is just REAL music - call it country, alt-country, Red Dirt or whatever, it’s just great music. I was a bit disappointed with the size of the crowd but the people that showed up were true Boland fans, singing along to just about every song played. I’ve attached an actual copy of the set list below - even signed by Jason. The band clearly takes advantage of having a great catalog of songs to pull from as they played a lot of the fan favorites, including Proud Souls, for which I’ve included a quick video of. It was taken by my friend David who was at the show with me - hopefully you can get a sense of the loyal fans that were there singing along. Some highlights of the show for me included the extremely talented Roger Ray on the steel guitar, dobro and lead guitar. He started the show on the steel guitar and then rotated through each instrument during the set - very talented and a real treat to catch live. After the guys completed their scheduled set list, the crowd called for an encore and the band happily obliged. They came back out with a superb version of Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road and then closed the show with Outlaw Band. On Outlaw, Noah Jeffries did a great job of switching between the fiddle and mandolin parts. Towards the end of the song, Jason set his guitar down and said goodnight to the crowd while the band jammed on. He then went up to the merch table and spent a lot of time meeting/greeting the fans. Great guy and band – they are really on top of their game right now. See ‘em if they roll through your neck of the woods.
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