Review: John Prine at the Touhill, Friday, February 27
That was just dandy with the audience at the sold-out Touhill Performing Arts Center. Including the drunk fella sitting right behind me, in the very last row of the orchestra section, alternately hollering encouragement and singing along.
It was an interesting opening salvo. I'd half-expected Prine to introduce himself via "Some Humans Ain't Human," a topical song on Fair & Square that skewers the recently departed White House occupant with this spoken passage near the end:
Have you ever noticedBut Prine's never really been about the easy laugh. In fact, he didn't play that song at all on Friday night. Instead, after the iconically nutty old chestnut "Spanish Pipedream" (Blow up your TV, throw away your paper/Move to the country, build you a home/Plant a little garden, eat a lotta peaches/Try and find Jesus on your own), we got the barstool's-eye view of "The Torch Singer" (Whiskey and pain both taste the same/During the time they go down). Said Prine after that one: "I ain't sang that in about 25 years." And then, out of the blue, "Six O'Clock News," a real day-brightener about an out-of-wedlock offspring who kills himself after learning that truth via an old diary (The whole town saw Jimmy on the six o'clock news/His brains were on the sidewalk, and blood was on his shoes).
When you're feelin' really good
There's always a pigeon
That'll come shit on your hood
Or you're feelin' your freedom
And the world's off your back
Some cowboy from Texas
Starts his own war in Iraq
Which is not to imply the evening was a down one. Far from it. Just a little...unpredictable.




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