The Actual Concert

I can't be as detailed as Poppy was about Wilco because my memory isn't as good and my powers of description are much poorer, but Emmylou was wonderful. She had no opening act -- that's the first time I've seen that. When she started (exactly on time), she sang for two straight hours without a break. We were so close that I could actually see her -- only about 10 rows back -- it's hard to believe that woman is 60. She did old and new songs, including one of my favorites from the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack -- Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby. On the album, she sings it with Gillian Welch and Alison Kraus; here she did it with the members of her band and it was just as affecting. I was struck more than ever by how she enjoys collaboration. Often on her albums, she sing duets or she'll be the backup for artists like Neil Young or Warren Zevon. Here, it wasn't as if her band was a backup band, it was more like they were her partners. She only did one song without them.

The Audience

Because audiences are so terrible here, I usually have to describe them separately. This time the audience was relatively well-behaved. The perpetually late people missed several songs, since Emmylou started exactly at 8:00. Once someone yelled out, "Welcome home!" but that was forgivable since Emmylou Harris is from Alabama. The only annoying thing was someone in the front kept yelling out, "Gram Parsons!" Emmylou handled that well; she just said, "Gram Parsons. Yes." She did start out singing with him, and many of her albums contain his songs, but geez! Parsons died in 1973; she's been doing her own music for more than 30 years. She's practically a country music icon; I think she's entitled to do a concert without doing a Gram Parsons' song.