Surprisingly Tame and Fun

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On Monday Robbie said that he was concerned about how to “read” the upcoming Thursday show at the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, having been told that many in the audience would be “older” and might not react well to him doing the old “FTT” song (which, for the record, he hasn’t done in about 18 years). Thursday arrived and the show was surprisingly tame. And that’s not an insult or a negative remark. I so rarely get to see Robbie Fulks “toned down” where he “has” to “behave himself” that it’s quite a treat to see it when it does happen. The music was still fine. He dropped a couple of songs that might have not gone over well with a group of die-hard dyed-in-Bill Monroe-wool bluegrass fans (“She Took a Lot of Pills” and “Banks of the Marianne”), but playing banjo at the start of the second set calmed any feathers that might have been ruffled with the performance of the Chico and the Man theme. Comedy was still heavy, too. I was rather shocked at the hearty laughter coming from a small-town Kentucky bluegrass audience when Fulks mentioned the “classic cartoon Beavis and Butt-Head” while discussing Tales From the Tour Bus (which is an animated country music series from the B&BH creator). Okay, the old folks are conservative but they know their MTV cartoons. Another one of the best jokes of the night came from fiddler Shad Cobb. Before doing his song “Banjo in the Holler” he described it as being about the banjo but not featuring the banjo, which was “a win-win.” (Standard bluegrass joke aside here: what do you call 100 banjos at the bottom of the Mississippi River? Answer: good for a start. ) I’m sure Robbie will let loose tonight, my third and final time this week to see him (and my last scheduled time to see him in 2017, although I do have tickets for him and the Flat Five in Chicago in December). But “tame” shows are fun every now and then, too!