Country artist Margo Cilker opened for the Drive-By Truckers in St. Andrew’s Hall in downtown Detroit the other night. She came to town on the strength of a notable debut, Pohorylle (2021).1
Even if I couldn’t help but yearn for the pedal steel that haunts the record, Cilker’s crystalline voice soon set me back in my seat.
Accompanied by a nearly-levitating
John Calvin Abney (on guitar and harmonica), her lyrics are laced with layered perspective and a wry humour in the face of life.
Margo Cilker’s songs sneak up on you,
soothing, knowing,
and served neat.
I’d cashed in some Ticketmaster-credit
for a balcony seat
—an old guy move—
but what a vantage in this venue . . .
. . . once home to the Scottish St Andrew’s Society of Detroit (f. 1849).
There was plenty to notice,
in anticipation of the head-liners,
the venerable Drive-By Truckers (DBT), touring on their latest album Welcome 2 Club XIII (2022).
Fans of the DBT
inhabited the hall, and its environs,
in a spectacular way,
setting the stage for their heroes.
The Truckers exude a knowingness too,
a doomed optimism
of the smart, southern kind.
They came in heavy and wild,
and weren’t leaving any time sooon.
I’d somehow never seen the Truckers.
And it occurred to me that, with covid and all,
it had been some time
since I’d been to a live rock show.
I’d misplaced the power of the sound and spectacle,
the shared experience.
DBT fans will rightly go on about the band’s stalwarts
Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, and about the virtuosity of Jay González.
But Matt Patton caught my attention on this night.
His bass playing and at-oneness with his fellow-musicians and his audience,
an embodied expression of pure rock and roll joy.
Not quite ready for my taxi home, after the show,
and wanting to work on a drawing I’d begun in the balcony
that would lead to this,
I popped round the corner to Jacoby’s for a glass of beer.
It wasn’t long before I was “joined” by a loquacious
DBT devotee in weird mirror goggles,
who recognised me from the show.
The guy didn’t look exactly like this . . .
but this is how he felt.
Talking non-stop,
about not only DBT shows past and this band’s historical minutiae, but also
—and without missing a beat, as if all of a certain realm are one—
The Grateful Dead and The Band.
*Photographs and Watercolour by Kenneth Mills
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Here, performing an solo-acoustic version of “Brother, Taxman, Preacher,” and here, “Kevin Johnson” with a full band. Thanks to Jay Clark Reid for the nudge towards Margo Cilker.
Nice evening out. Detroit is a great place to be on a scene. There's good vibes and plenty of grit!
Las fotos son fabulosas,Ken! Me sentí como si estuviera allí en la sala de conciertos contigo. Además, me encanta la nueva paleta de colores del cuadro. Parece de otro mundo. Gracias!