Earle's intensity takes enthralled crowd to higher place

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Aug 2, 2000 by Katie Johnston

DENVER - In the liner notes of his new CD, Steve Earle writes about transcendence, a theme that threads through "Transcendental Blues" in introspective lyrics aching with sadness and regret.

This vulnerability didn't break the surface of Earle's 2-hour and 20-minute hail of impenetrable country-edged rock at the Ogden Theatre on Monday night, but the band played so relentlessly that some level of transcendence must have taken place.

Many of the set's 31 songs sounded similar to one another - three muscly guitars and one drummer, no frills, no surprises - but the intensity kept building and the audience kept sweating, and the four guys on stage kept laying it down.

Philadelphia-based quartet Marah, oft-described as a mixture of the Replacements and Bruce Springsteen, opened the show.

Playing to what he said was the biggest crowd he'd ever had in Denver, although it wasn't a sell-out, Earle started with the first three songs from the new album: "Transcendental Blues," "Everyone's in Love With You" and "Another Town." Earle, in a T-shirt, loose pants and hiking boots, stood off to the right, bearded and solid, arms wrapped around his guitar and occasionally a mandolin, a harmonica strapped around his neck when needed. He paused a few times to tell stories - one of his teen years in Texas before the twangy "Telephone Road," another of a Texas execution he witnessed, which became "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)."

Earle has struggled with drugs and alcohol, has married six times and has been arrested more than once. He's liberal, gruff and poetic, and Monday night he attracted a throng of burly guys who identified with this struggling hero as they echoed his words.

The ballads - "My Old Friend The Blues," "The Boy Who Never Cried," "Lonelier Than This," "I Don't Want To Lose You Yet" - slipped in a subtle tenderness yet burned with the same masculinity as the rest of the fire-branded roots rock. "Goodbye" unfolded with particularly powerful regret.

A few songs suffered from the at-times overpowering reverb but never lost the tenor of a man who's working his way through life on the sad side of the mirror.

Earle brought out a whistle player for "The Galway Girl," a fun, "strictly fictitious" Celtic song near the end of the set that inspired a clap-along and finally loosened the band's intensity into a hip-bumping dance. An explosive "Copperhead Road" was next, broken only by Earle telling a security guard to give back a fan's camera, which the guard sheepishly returned.

The set revolved around the new songs - 13 to be exact, including the thirsting joy of "Steve's Last Ramble," a quick "Halo 'Round The Moon," the supercharged then mournful "All My Life," and "Wherever I Go" and "I Can Wait" - and reached back to Earle's 1986 debut album with "Someday," "Fearless Heart" and "Guitar Town."

After two solid hours and only a few sips of water, the band finally took a one-minute break before returning for two encores - "the part of the program called songs we dig," Earle said - of Nirvana, Bottle Rockets and Rolling Stones covers.

At 10 minutes to midnight, the three guitar players crowded the front of the stage and played their final chords, and the fans, completely satiated, at last let them go.

Review

RATING: A-

WHO: Steve Earle, in concert

WHEN: Monday night

WHERE: Ogden Theatre, Denver

LATEST RELEASE: "Transcendental Blues"