Review: The Flatlanders

"More a Legend Than a Band" is more than just the title of a Flatlanders album; it's a fitting motto for a trio whose reputation is deeper and more vast than its irregular history.

Wednesday night, the threesome -- Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock -- drew a large and appreciative crowd to Knuckleheads and treated them to an evening of song, musicianship, humor and reverie. 

Like some Texas hippie-country version of Crosby Stills & Nash, the Flatlanders are an ensemble whose sum exceeds the value of its parts. Each man has had a respectable solo career, yet together they create music and conjure energy and a mood that is as endearing as it is enduring. They also write about the state of the world and the people in it, like in the song  "Homeland Refugee," a song about someone ruined by the financial meltdown.

The setlist comprised about 20 songs and it went all the way back to the band's beginnings -- 40 years ago -- and the song "Dallas," which was released as an eight-track single in 1972 and then virtually ignored (prompting a hiatus;/breakup that lasted more than 25 years). A spot on "The Horse Whisperer"  soundtrack in 1998 stirred up the appetite for a reunion, which occurred about two years later.

As old as it is, "Dallas" still fit in perfectly with the rest of the set, though, which focused heavily on the band's previous two releases, including 2009's "Hills and Valleys."

But no matter what they and their band (guitar plus rhythm section) played or who was singing or what style they were in (country, folk or rock), it all sounded sprung from the same soil. Their vocal differences add a special flavor and texture to their songs: Gilmore's reedy warble sounds  a lot like Willie Nelson's voice about 15 years ago; Ely's growl is suited for the rowdier, rock-ish music he tends to favor; and Hancock's has the grit of a Texas folk troubadour. They would pass the vocal baton back and forth all night, sometimes within a song, enriching the feel that they are a true ensemble, not just three guys swapping songs among each other. 

I could go on the stock whine about country music and what passes for it these days, but that would be singing a sermon to the choir. This was Texas music at its finest and most diverse; you just won't ever hear it on mainstream radio. Their loss.

The highlights started right off the bat with Ely's rollicking opener, "I Had My Hopes Up High." Hancock followed that with one of his own tunes,  "Wind's Dominion," then Gilmore weighed in with "Wavin' My Heart Goodbye." And so it went, loosely, for the rest of the show, which swung and swayed from folk to rocking Texas blues to mid-tempo country ballads. They stepped outside their own catalog to pay tribute to fellow Texan Townes Van Zandt ("Snowin' on Raton") and cover Lefty Frizzell ("Saginaw,  Michigan").

It was all good, but they saved the best for last: "Dallas," then a rip-snorting rendition of "Sittin' On Top of the World," featuring guest Paul Cebar on guitar, a lovely verison of "If You Were a Bluebird," then a show-stopping (and -ending) cover of Terry Allen's "Give Me A Ride to Heaven, Boy." By the time they took their final bows amid a hail of cheers and applause, they'd delivered more than 90 minutes of music and confirmed their status as cult heroes, if not bona fide legends.

| Timothy Finn, The Star

Comments

[donnam]

I knew I shouldn't have missed this show. Saw Joe Ely with John Hiatt and Guy Clark at a songwriters show many years ago and it's still a high point.

[pellboy]

You left out Lyle Lovett, donnam. Saw both versions of that songwriters show when it came thru KC.

Yeah, bummed to have missed this as well.

[Kirk]

It was a great show!

[donnam]

Funny Pellboy, I couldn't for the life of me recall who the fourth dude was but you're correct.