When it comes to honky-tonk music, Austin City Limits is a major epicenter for the genre. Started by Willie Nelson in 1974 as a PBS broadcast, the venue has become a rite of passage for any outlaw country musicians to headline. Artists such as Merle Haggard, Bob Wills and Townes Van Zandt led to the venue’s early success. In recent years, big names such as Charley Crockett, Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell have kept outlaw country alive into the 21st century.
This wasn’t Canadian country artist Colter Wall’s first rodeo at the Moody Theater, but nonetheless, it shook the stage.
With the recent release of “Memories and Empties,” this tour marked Wall’s sixth studio album. An enthusiastic crowd donning cowboy boots and trucker hats flooded the general admission floor, where my native Austonite friend Finn was waiting for me by the barricade.
It was a rowdy group of people on the floor, all cheering loudly when Wall took the stage, accompanied by a five-piece band. On top of Wall’s own guitar and vocals, his band consisted of a pedal steel, harmonicas, drums, bass and a guy who had almost every stringed instrument you could think of. Often during songs, he would swap out his mandolin to shred on a double-neck electric guitar in tandem with the pedal steel player, adding a rock twist to the country sounds.
Holding true to his studio sounds, Wall’s setlist flipped seamlessly from punchy waltzes to slow and somber tales of life on the plains. Starting with “1800 Miles,” expectations were set. Wall’s no-nonsense style of playing makes for a snappy show, going from song to song with ease.
However, don’t expect his shows to sound straight off his records. As part of Wall’s efforts to revive the old school country and western sound, he will often perform medleys of his own songs combined with popular western tunes. A standout from this night’s show was the first sections of Wall’s “Plain to See Plainsman,” followed by a verse of Marty Robbins’ “Strawberry Roan.”
He then effortlessly blended his gothic southern tale “The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie” with the historical ballad, “Bob Fudge” by fellow Canadian country musician Ian Tyson. These western mashups play on the extensive storytelling capabilities of the genre and draw ties between songs with similar narrative cores.
After jamming with the band for 10 or so songs, Wall dismissed them for his solo set. While they left, he joked they needed to go check the Seahawks score. Moments like this are funnily common at country shows, when artists pause to check in on the score of football games between songs. (An over-enthusiastic audience member will often shout the score back from the pit.)
The solo set pumped the brakes on the previous choppy tunes. The mellow nature of “Cypress Hills and the Big Country” transported you to the plains of Saskatchewan, where Wall spends his time not touring, tending to his cattle.
Colter Wall is a refreshing departure from the caricature of country music that so many musicians nowadays put on. When he sings about throwing houlihans in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn, or dodging Nashville executives to instead spend his time singing songs around a fire, he’s not telling an exaggerated fairytale. He’s just singing about his life.
Wall’s elusive career means he doesn’t tour during calving season, and he rarely takes interviews with the press. To him, he’s just a cowboy who likes to sing with his friends.
The set ended with the band coming back out to play some of Wall’s more popular songs, such as “Sleeping on the Blacktop” and his cover of Elton Britt’s “Cowpoke.” As soon as the crowd heard each iconic intro, the entire house was hollering along. We whistled and cheered at each appearance of Wall’s incredible finger-picking style that launched him into stardom.
Before we knew it, the show was over. Wall waved his thank yous to the crowd as a stray heckler shouted for him to play “Honky Tonk Nighthawk” through the thunderous applause.
The lights went down, and we waited, never letting the noise of our excitement lull for a moment. Whistles, shouts and “yeehaws” fill the air.
Wall and the band re-emerged from the wings for their encore, granting the heckler his wish and playing the crowd out to the peppy slide-filled song.
As any avid concert-goer knows, the show isn’t over when the music is done. For those pressed against the barricade, there is one final goal: the setlist. Now, at larger shows, it can be much harder to snag one, having to shout out to the stagehand above the other clawing voices. I managed to be one of the lucky few.
Comparing the written setlist to what Wall ended up playing, you’ll see he swapped out many songs on a whim, keeping the audience and his band on their toes with each new tune.
This concert has been on my bucket list since I first found Colter Wall back when I was just beginning to get into country music. Needless to say, it was worth the wait. Wall’s isn’t reviving the old country sound but is showing people it never went anywhere. He hit the nail on the head at Austin City Limits and will surely keep the honky-tonk heartbeat going steady.
