Turnpike Troubadours rock Paycom Center
Oklahoma's own red dirt band, the Turnpike Troubadours, continued their comeback this year with a concert Saturday night at Paycom Center. Here are five highlights from the show.
Headlining a big arena
A fixture at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa and other small venues over the years, Saturday night's concert at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City was the band's first headlining arena show in their home state.
The show was sold out, proving the band has the kind of drawing power to fill up a large venue. The Turnpike Troubadours had been on hiatus for almost three years, due to lead singer Even Felker's well-publicized issues with alcohol.
But Felker got sober and the six-piece band (lead guitarist Ryan Engleman, fiddle player Kyle Nix, bassist R.C. Edwards, drummer Gabe Pearson, and steel guitar and accordion player Hank Early) reunited for the first time in April for back-to-back sold-out shows at Cain's Ballroom. The Turnpike Troubadours first formed in 2005 and the fans have been loyal since.
"Thank you for riding along with us," Felker told the Paycom Center crowd on Saturday night.
Foot stomping music
Jed Clampett always loved some good "foot stomping" music. He would have loved the Troubadours.
Seats were not necessarily needed for Saturday night's show at Paycom Center, especially in the lower bowl and the floor. The fans were standing from the moment the Red Dirt Rockers opened with "Every Girl" to the show's end an hour and a half later when they performed "Something To Hold On To."
In between, the Troubadours literally had the crowd stomping their feet with fan favorites like "Long Hot Summer Day," something Oklahomans can certainly relate to. It's a blue-collar anthem about a man who has to work long, hard hours on the Illinois River while his lady waits for him at home.
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"For every day I'm workin' on the Illinois River, get a half a day off with pay," Felker crooned. "Old tow boat pickin' up barges, on a long hot summer day."
Those concertgoers who had sat down were back on their feet when Nix started fiddling the beginning of a Troubadour's classic, "Gin, Smoke, Lies," a song that even mentions a blue-eyed ballroom boy in Oklahoma City.
"Well, if you been true, well if you been true, you better look me in the eyes," Felker belted out the chorus. "Well, all I smell is cheap perfume, and gin and smoke and lies."
The song, written by Felker, may be the Troubadours' most popular song. Felker previously said he was inspired to write the song while playing the banjo when sitting on the front porch at his mom and dad's house in southeast Oklahoma.
"I realized I couldn't keep one woman and the rooster in the backyard had 20, so the whole song's based around that. It's just a song about birds. It's about birds, really."
Speaking of birds
"Gin, Smoke, Lies" is not the only Troubadours song about birds. Saturday was the opening day of quail hunting season in Oklahoma, so of course the band had to play "The Bird Hunters" on Saturday night.
It's a song that certainly resonates with anyone who has followed pointing dogs with their buddies in a search for Oklahoma's bobwhites and longs for those days to return.
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"The covey took wing, there were shotguns a-singin', a pointing dog down in the old logging road," the song begins. "Danny got three and looked back grinning. I fumbled and tried to reload. The country was cold with the sun westward sinking. It's good to be back in this place.
"With my hands around a Belgian made Browning, my mind on the lines of her face. Danny's my buddy. We grew up like family, hunted timber before we could drive. And the old English Pointer once belonged to me, but I 'give' him up when I moved in '05."
One reason the Troubadours are so good is because of songs like "The Bird Hunters" which are so authentic. Many Oklahomans have lived this life.
In fact, one fan threw his cap on stage as the Troubadours began "The Bird Hunters," as some sort of tribute, I assume. The color of the cap, of course, was hunter orange.
Tributes to other Oklahoma musicians
"This is for our good friend John Fullbright," Felker told the crowd before breaking into another Troubadours' classic, "Pay No Rent."
Fullbright is a singer-songwriter from Okemah, and he and Felker wrote "Pay No Rent" together. It begins with another slice of Oklahoma life.
"I hear the clicking of the dominoes, you shaking up a game," Felker sings. "And if we lose a hand I bet I'll know just who's to blame. But if we hear 21, if we make that call, I better sit here in my chair just feeling ten feet tall."
Nix, the band's talented fiddler, wore a Byron Berline shirt during the concert. Berline, the legendary violin player from Guthrie who died last year, occasionally would share the stage with the Troubadours, as he did during a 2018 show at The Criterion in Oklahoma City.
Stay together
The Troubadours performed 19 songs during Saturday night's show. Felker provided the main vocals on all but one, "All Your Favorite Bands," which was performed by Edwards.
"And may all your favorite bands stay together" is part of the main chorus. It is a lyric that also is a plea from the thousands of Troubadour fans in attendance Saturday night.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma's own Turnpike Troubadours rock Paycom Center
