Live Review: John Prine, Tyler Childers

Balcony vantage points are long gone and the reserved seats at the front of the stage inside the ornate main room of The Tivoli are quickly filling as Kentucky singer-songwriter Tyler Childers strolls on stage with his acoustic guitar. He bursts into Nose On The Grindstone, a cautionary – albeit light-hearted – tale of working hard and avoiding life’s chemical pitfalls. He looks dapper and well-groomed, his red hair neatly parted and beard trimmed, admitting to having used his first day in Australia to update his image with a spiffy new suit and haircut. But his songs like Bottles & Bibles and Born Again come from a far more roughshod and rural grounding, Appalachian anthems about family, poverty, using religion as a crutch and hedonism as an escape. Childers drips with authenticity, his southern Gothic narratives punctuated liberally with aggressive hollers as he rides the ups and downs of his own narratives, the crowd quiet and entranced throughout tracks like Steep Grade, Banded Clovis, Universal Sound and Lady May. He departs without fanfare after a rousing rendition of Willie Nelson’s Time Of The Preacher, scoring a strong ovation and having set the scene perfectly for the evening to come.

It’s been over a quarter of a century since Australia was graced with the presence of the great John Prine so the level of anticipation is extraordinary. The veteran enters the fray a few minutes early with his elite band and starts tonight’s long haul with the cruisy build of Picture Show (the original ‘90s version, which featured backing vocals from Tom Petty). Prine is front and centre with his trusty acoustic from the get-go, while the four suit-clad members of his backing band prove as versatile as they are sartorially elegant. Between them they add electric guitar, double bass, pedal steel, dobro, fiddle – anything needed to serve the particular song – while fleshing out tunes like Six O’Clock News, Knocking On Your Screen Door and Bruised Orange (Chain Of Sorrow).

Prine is in his 70s now but remains present and engaged throughout the night, his distinctive voice showing wear but still super-expressive, and he seems thrilled with the late-career resurgence prompted by recent long-player The Tree Of Forgiveness, his first new album in over a decade and remarkably his first ever Top 10 hit. It’s remarkable how naturally new songs like Caravan Of Fools and Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska 1967 (Crazy Bone) nestle perfectly amid tunes from his lauded 1971 self-titled debut like Spanish Pipedream and Hello In There, the quality of Prine’s songcraft clearly undiminished over the decades. The singer apologises after Far From Me and Summer’s End for “playing two sad ones in a row” but he stays in vulnerable, heartfelt territory with I Have Met My Love Today and Storm Windows before a rousing version of old chestnut Angel From Montgomery finds the band slipping into side of stage darkness, leaving their frontman to shine on his lonesome.

And shine Prine does as he holds court with just his guitar, the night becoming even more intimate as the natural storyteller introduces tunes like Dear Abby, All The Best and the evergreen Donald And Lydia, joined at one stage by Childers for a cross-generational duet. The reverent crowd goes raucous upon hearing the opening notes of the pain-racked Sam Stone, Prine carrying the veteran’s lament with perfect poignancy until band members start to slyly return one by one in a genuinely spine-tingling slow build. There’s so much joy in the room – both on stage from the players and emanating from the darkness before them – as they close things out with full band takes on God Only Knows, Saddle In The Rain and a riotous version of Lake Marie that sees Prine shed his guitar and own plenty of handy moves as he nimbly dances off stage while his band plays on, the full set having showcased a subtle-yet-beautiful arc.

A standing ovation draws everyone back quite happily, and there’s so much love in the room as they run through playfully ruminative new track When I Get To Heaven: indeed, you feel that if it wasn’t for the venue curfew Prine and his bandmates would happily press on. As things transpire they’re joined by Childers and two female backing singers – including the singer’s wife, Fiona – for a glorious run through of old staple Paradise, and with that our long-awaited audience with this bona fide legend is over.

Spending two hours in a room with Prine and his songs makes it abundantly clear why his peers and contemporaries like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash have cited him relentlessly as an inspiration over the years, and why the current generation of rising Americana stars speak his name in such hushed tones. A true pleasure from start to finish.