He Ain't Half Bad

Artist: Sturgill Simpson

Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Venue: The Horseshoe Tavern

City: Toronto

Price: $15.00

Seats: General Admission

Genre: Alt Country

Overview:

Let me start by saying I’m not normally a big-time country music fan. I like a bit here and there and I appreciate the old stuff like George Jones and Willie Nelson. Although Sturgill is country through and through, the album reminds me of old-time country that just took a hit of LSD. Sturgill’s whole album, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music is trippy. This good ole hippie girl loves a few references to marijuana, LSD, methamphetamine and DMT…yep, a frigging country song that references DMT! These songs are anti-bro country…a true throwback to Waylon Jennings.

Sturgill is an artist who wanted to burn down the tent at Bonnaroo and then stop another show to break up a fight! Awesome sauce! Here’s the link to the fight video (thanks to my amazing hairdresser for the link! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWOMuD4EkWc).

How I got turned on:

I read about Sturgill in Rolling Stone magazine and was immediately hooked when I first listened to his hit “Turtles All the Way Down.” I didn’t know anything about the Turtles story, but, my brilliant son filled me in. Turtles All The Way Down is a jocular expression that was documented in a Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time….it goes like this (per Wikipedia):

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

I love that story and how Sturgill uses it to explain a theory (one that he doesn’t profess to agree with) that everything is being emitted from one point and that we’re all part of a universal shared consciousness. R/S magaizine quote)” How trippy is that shit! He actually says most journalists over analyze that tune and it tells us exactly what the song is about in the following Tiny Desk session… listen to the tune in the first three minute of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5cMqD0WqYE

Vibe:

I only saw one cowboy hat which was surprising. I did see one kid with a preppy little backpack and I kinda wanted to tell him how out of place he looked in this middle-aged rockabilly renegade crowd. We were relinquished to the back of the venue since we arrived so late and I had to stand on my tip-toes for most of the show just to catch a glimpse of the main man, but, it was worth the 15 bucks.

Venue:

My second favourite indoor Toronto venue, beside Massey Hall, is the Horseshoe Tavern. As soon as you walk in your feel the history, the rock, the roll, the smoky, greasy, sweaty vibe of many nights of good times with great tunes and legendary artists. The place emits this vibe of classic rock where everyone had a joint and a zippo and bottle of Canadian. I always take pictures of the stall art as I get to read the funny and profound scrawled inside the grubby stalls of the Horsehoe’s basement loo.

Highlights:

I tweeted about Sturgill the day after the show. I summed it up like this…he seemed to simmer all night….he finally came to a raging boil during the encore…he let go and just gave it everything in that last song to get the crowd roaring.

Lowlights:

We ended up paying double for parking since we both forgot out credit cards and tried to pay for parking with the change we could scrape up from the console. It turns out 2.75 only gets you about 45 minutes! They also ran out of Bud Light, but, I threw back a few Keith’s and all was well in the world.

Tips/Notes:

Check out Sturgill on youtube. He’s awesome, I promise. Start with Turtles All the Way Down, then listen to his cover of “The Promise” and then cap it off with You Can Have The Crown….that last song finishes with the line “I’m still trying to figure out what the hell rhymes with bronco.”

Also, go early to the Horseshoe to get a good spot near the front. It is worth it for the acoustics and to get a good view. Read the bathroom walls, too.

Outfit:

It was the night when Josh Donaldson was only a few thousand votes back in the All Star Race so I decided on a Jays tank top, ripped up jeans, sandals and my Donaldson Jersey on top. It was comfy country with a purpose!