Although I didn't take notes or obtain setlists, last week I did manage to make it to the final three shows of what has been billed as the "final tour" by Bonnie `Prince' Billy (a/k/a Will Oldham). Each show was quite different from the others, and each wonderful in its own way. In hopes that anyone is interested, here are a few random thoughts and memories about each gig.
On Thursday June 11, Will O played the Southgate House in Newport KY, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. The Southgate House is a wonderful venue, a comfortable speakeasy that has been continuously operated since the Prohibition era. It is filled with secret rooms and secret passageways, and features great sound and great sightlines. It is said to be the birthplace of the Tommy Gun! Until about 2004, the Southgate House was one of Will's most frequent tour-stops. I attended one memorable BPB show there in 2003 or 2004 at which a man in the audience stripped naked, climbed on stage, and danced right next to Will while Will unflappably continued to perform. (When the naked man finished his dance, he sheepishly asked the audience to return his clothing to him, which finally happened only after about ten awkward minutes had passed with an increasingly anxious-looking naked man lollygagging on stage).
This time, nothing quite as unexpected as a spontaneous nude dance took place, but BPB and band played a flawless 2.5-hour set to a sold-out house (capacity about 500). It seemed to me that a disproportionate proportion of the songs were ballads, slow songs, and sad songs (including a half-speed, quiet version of "I See A Darkness," plus "The Brute Choir" and "Agnes"), though Emmett Kelly vigorously disputed this charge when I later asked him about it. Will O made several between-song attempts to provoke an Ohio River controversy (by disparaging Ohio and extolling Kentucky), but the congenial half-Ohioan audience had too much love for Will to really rise to the bait and defend themselves against Will's taunting. For this show only, the first opening act was Brett Eugene Ralph's Kentucky Chrome Review, a new Louisville-based southern-rock combo led by Brett Ralph, the man who brought coastal hardcore to Kentucky in the early 1980s. (Although almost no one outside the Bluegrass ever noticed, in 1996 Will O used his Palace Records imprint to reissue some 1985 archival recordings by Brett Ralph's second Louisville hardcore band, Fading Out). Although I missed the beginning of the Kentucky Chrome Review's set because the line to get into the building was 30 minutes long, I was highly impressed with what I heard. I also bought a copy of Brett Ralph's new book of poetry, "Black Sabbatical," which was published this month by a Louisville small press and will be worth its cover price just for its awesome cover alone. (I haven't yet had a chance to read the poetry).
