Appreciative Meijer Gardens audience soaked up Southern charm from the enthusiastic, twangy, bluegrass, country & Americana act in its return to Grand Rapids on Thursday. The review & photo gallery.
Crowd-Pleasing Music and Laughs: Old Crow Medicine Show. (Photo/Bryan Bolea)
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There’s a classic bit from an early episode of “The Simpsons” when Bart and Milhouse attend an ill-fated Spinal Tap concert which wonderfully sends up familiar rock concert cliches.
In their brief time on stage, the cartoon version of the parody band panders like mad to the audience, referencing a local highway, dissing nearby “rival” town Shelbyville and hollowly lauding the hosting city: “Nobody rocks like (checks note on guitar) … Springfield!”
It’s hard to not think fondly of that joke when catching a performance from the ever-endearing Old Crow Medicine Show, who packed the amphitheater Thursday night at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park for its Fifth Third Bank Summer Concert series.
Lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Ketch Secor has made a running joke of leaning into that trope. By the fifteenth or so reference to Grand Rapids/wolverines/the Grand River/Spartans/Grayling, one can’t help but respect his commitment to the gag.
And while the commentary is almost certainly tongue-in-cheek, there is nothing insincere or remotely cynical about the band’s energy, personality or the talent they bring to the venue year after year. A popular and familiar sight on the Meijer Gardens’ stage, Thursday evening’s show was a crowd-pleasing affair with nearly two dozen songs packed into roughly 110 minutes of dancing, clapping, sing-alongs and laughs.
The Opener: Jaime Wyatt performed songs from her new album. (Photo/Bryan Bolea)
Pulling from material familiar (“Wagon Wheel,” “Cocaine Habit”) and new (“DeFord Rides Again*,” “Used to Be a Mountain,” “Bombs Away” and the title track from their 2022 release “Paint This Town”), Old Crow was reliably upbeat and also unexpected, with interesting musical turns and a few fun surprises–a show-closing rendition of KISS’s “Rock and Roll All Nite” among them.
(*This song is a tribute to harmonica player DeFord Bailey, the first African-American musician to appear on the Grand Ole Opry, a story that percussionist/mandolin player/backing vocalist Jerry Pentecost encouraged the audience to Google upon return home.)
While Old Crow is known for providing the audience with a raucous good time, they do not shy away from heavier themes in their songwriting, including racism, violence, addiction, poverty and environmental catastrophe. Secor spoke with candor about the difficulties of touring the country and seeing the pain and heaviness in people’s lives. He implored the audience to come together before launching into 2004’s “We’re All In This Together.”
Show opener Jaime Wyatt warmed up the crowd with 40 minutes of country-tinged rock from her new album, “Neon Cross,” produced by her friend and collaborator Shooter Jennings.
Next up in the Meijer Gardens’ Fifth Third Bank Summer Concerts series is the sold-out Trombone Shorty’s Voodoo Threauxdown at 6 p.m. Friday (June 24).
PHOTO GALLERY: Old Crow Medicine Show, Jaime Wyatt at Meijer Gardens
Photos by Bryan Bolea
