Son Volt’s Surprise Show Stays Secret

The problem with an unannounced “secret headliner” is that if the artist actually remains a mystery, the fans that would most likely want to attend the show don’t get the word. Such was the case with Sunday night’s underappreciated Son Volt performance at the Moody Theater’s new sister club, 3ten ACL Live.

The 350-capacity venue was only half full at its peak, and only about half of that insider crowd truly paid attention. Kudos to the venue for keeping the show so tightly under wraps so as not to interfere with the band’s Old Settler’s Music Fest appearance, but the result was an intimate show in need of an appreciative crowd. By the end of the 90-minute appearance, only about 40 people remained.

Group frontman Jay Farrar likewise seemed typically lukewarm in engaging the crowd, but nonetheless delivered a spectacular run through the band’s seminal alt.country debut, Trace, in celebration of the LP’s 20th anniversary. In trio formation with neither bass nor drums, the band played it lean and mean, Mark Spencer’s pedal steel saturating the songs alongside Gary Hunt’s electric guitar and turns on fiddle and mandolin.

Local songstress Carson McHone set up the evening stunningly, turning in a short set that leaned on last year’s debut LP, Goodluck Man. The singer kept a running joke of not revealing the headliner, but more importantly showed off her evolution in songwriting that’s broadened away from mere honky-tonk dance-floor fillers.

Son Volt emerged with little fanfare or prelude, kicking immediately into “Tear-Stained Eye” and “Live Free.” Farrar’s voice still settles like a saturated cask of aged whiskey, rich and holding in more than is on the surface. “Catching On” played heavier before the frontman finally addressed the crowd with, “It really wasn’t a surprise, was it?”

That was the most acknowledgment he gave the small crowd as the group quickly worked across Trace to finally close with “Windfall.” The second half of the set spread out across Farrar’s catalog, including the mandolin-braced “Barstow” and songs from Son Volt’s upcoming album, Notes of Blue, before closing out by rocking “Afterglow 61.”

A short, two-song encore took the evening to its 11pm close, ending with “Hearts and Minds” from 2013’s Honky Tonk and a characteristically Farrar take on Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” appropriate for the drizzling night outside.