Todd Snider at The Heights Theater...

Way back in those heady days when I was still working but planning retirement activity for the year to come we bought tickets to see one of our favorite dudes, Todd Snider at the Heights Theater in Houston Texas. Of course schedules change and pandemics happen and on the newly scheduled date over a year later Cathy had to work so her old college room mate, Anne and I made the journey south to see the show.   

I think Todd was first on our music radar way back in the early 2000s. He seemed to be trying to crack the country scene as a young bright singer who had an occasionally funny, witty song pop out that made you say, hey there is something special going on with that one. We caught him at a small SXSW showcase and kind of like one of his story raps he tells between tunes he acted a bit like "I Was Looking For a Job When I Found This One" or maybe hey I got a ride why am I hanging around? I guess we all have a bad night now and then and some of my own bad nights have been at SXSW. 

But the songs got better and the raps between them got funnier and we saw Todd with Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires with Jerry Jeff Walker joining on the ACL stage, Todd in  Chicago with Elizabeth Cook opening and Todd with Widespread Panic. Maybe even another time or two that I can't recall. 

If you don't know Todd he sings about characters who are not living the American dream. They are not swimming in that old mainstream. They wear cooking hats and aprons, carry num chucks, which they might use, are getting too old to sit down while wearing handcuffs and if those he sings of are part of the square corporate world the question is asked why, after all they have achieved do those acting so irresponsibly seem like they have it all? 

None of those lines are mine, they come from the songs but if you catch me and Cathy playing out as a duo you can probably bet we may play a Todd Snider tune. 

This concert was mostly Todd's older material with a fair sampling from all albums except the last two. I consider the last two maybe not his best but certainly masterworks as far as the social commentary contained in them goes. There was a banjo on stage that had me primed for The Blues on Banjo. Just as well, I think it was the man himself who said you can't play the blues in an air conditioned room. 

I was recently in on a discussion of whether it was cool or not to use a music stand on stage. To settle it and settled divisively it was when some one produced a photo of Johnny Cash using a stand on stage at the recording of his live at San Quentin album. Todd uses a teleprompter. His songs and stories are pretty complex with torrents of words that must have a smooth delivery just right to be effective so I can see how it would be handy. When we see Bob Dylan and Kanye using teleprompters we'll all want one.   

I hope you go see Todd sometime and give his latest release "First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder a listen. I think it's great.