Railbird Recovers on Day Two

Words and Photos by Bill Foster

Well, folks, let’s get the business out of the way first: I am happy to report that the second day of Railbird Festival in Lexington, Kentucky, was a vast improvement over the first. I am not sure if it’s the changes the organizers made or because a whole lot of people chose not to come the second day. Given that I met at least a dozen who didn’t come and that people were streaming INTO the gates at 7 PM, I suspect the latter. In any case, I got on the shuttle with no line, lines at the site were manageable, water plentiful and the vibe peaceful on another scorching Kentucky day.

As I was entering, I caught the last two songs of Southern Avenue. Their new album is great, and they sounded great on stage. However, my day truly began with The War and Treaty. Michael and Tanya Trotter have a unique way of grabbing a crowd by the throat and not letting go. They come out to some high energy soul, immediately raise their hands up, step onto the speakers and exhort the crowd to get up and dance. Even at the hottest part of the day, they immediately got the crowd moving and didn’t let the intensity drop one moment for the entire hour. It’s truly something to behold.

I moved on to Cedric Burnside on the smaller Burl Stage. Burnside is, of course, the grandson of R.L. Burnside and a former drummer in his band. He plays in a two-piece with a drummer and specializes in the same hypnotic, grooving hill country blues as his grandfather. He is an excellent player and singer with a way of expressing essential truths simply and eloquently in his songwriting. It was a spell-binding set. Afterwards, Robert Earl Keen took the stage with his four-piece, highlighted by a great electric ukulele player. Dapper in a paisley blue jacket and kangol, Keen was low-key but well-received, especially the set-closing “The Road Goes on Forever.”

Liz Cooper and the Stampede played the Burl Stage next. A former college golfer turned rocker, the Stampede are a three-piece psychedelic rock trio out of Nashville who have gained a lot of good press lately and with good reason. Cooper is a shredder who frequently plays on her knees and tortures her guitar like no one I’ve seen since Sonic Youth. Her music ranges from quiet ambient to full out psych freak-outs. Don’t miss it.

The Revivalists were next on the huge Limestone Stage with the first huge crowd of the day. It must have been a difficult day for the New Orleans based band with the fate of their homes – under threat from Hurricane Ida – still unknown but lead singer David Shaw dedicated the show to the city and immediately got the crowd moving. He prowled from end to end of the massive stage while playing “Keep Going,” “All My Friends,” and “Wish I knew You.” Blank first saw this band in the tiny and sadly defunct World Café at Bonnaroo. The interaction between the band members and the proximity to the crowd made it one of the most special discoveries we’ve ever found. Unfortunately, some of that magic seems lost on such a big stage but the catchiness of the songs more than makes up for it.

I headed back to the Burl for Zach Bryan. I predict the success of an up and comer not by their music but by their crowds and I promise you, I assure you, this dude is going to be huge. The entire first six rows were Bryan fans who arrived when the gates opened and sat through four other bands waiting for him. They had hats and t-shirts and knew every song. The crowd was at least double the size of any other artist I saw on that stage. It felt like I was seeing the start of a phenomenon. Oklahoma raised and currently enrolled in the U.S. Navy (and I have no idea how he is doing this while on active duty), Bryan is the type of guy to thank the crowd for chanting “USA USA” and to start the show by asking for a moment of thought for the thirteen service members killed in the Kabul Airport bombing. His songs remind me of an early Simpson or Childers albeit minus some of the complexity. It remains to be seen whether he will be the next Tyler Childers or the next Jason Aldean but there is a lot of potential there.

Over to band of Horse on the Elkhorn Stage. Lead singer Ben Bridwell, sporting a beautiful aluminum guitar, was energized and outgoing from moment one, obviously excited to be playing again. The band began with “Islands on the Coast” and ended with “The Funeral,” with an excellent singalong of “Neon Moon” somewhere in the middle.

Afterwards, I headed over to the Limestone Stage for Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Like a couple of other bands in these Covid times, Isbell elected to set up deep in the stage, making photographing or even seeing him difficult from the first few rows. The band also played with minimal lighting or decoration. None of that was needed as the band was tight, self-assured and powerful throughout, while playing in front of the largest crowd I have ever seen at one of his shows. Isbell seems to have rediscovered his love of electric guitar during the shutdown, when he posted guitar videos on social media every other day. Where he previously allowed Sadler Vaden to take most solos, he took a solo on almost every song here and was consistently fabulous. Isbell was animated and funny and excited to be playing the new album “Reunions,” which was released just before the shutdown. Fully half the set was devoted to that album, starting with a powerful “What Have I Done to Help.” Other highlights were “It Gets Easier,” “Last of My Kind” and “Overseas.” The set ended with a powerful one-two of “Super 8” and “Can You Hear Me Knocking,” a Rolling Stones cover Isbell ended sets with a decade ago and revived to honor the passing of Charlie Watts. All in all, it was the performance of the festival, a masterwork by a group at the height of its powers.

I caught a little bit of a group called Pinegrove on my way to Khruangbin and they seemed like an energetic, idealistic up and comer. I enjoyed what little I saw. Over on the Elkhorn, Khurangbin had a MASSIVE crowd. I knew very little about them but had a moment of epiphany when they came out and I realized that Blank had covered them at Bonnaroo back in 2017. Their chill grooves just as the sun was setting seemed to fit the mood of a crowd -who’d been through a brutally hot weekend – perfectly and it was a relaxing and entertaining show. After that highlight, I had to decide whether to head over to Dave Mathews band on the main stage. And I am sorry to say, I just couldn’t do it. Khruangbin had put me in such a good mood, there was no shuttle wait and I just felt too much anxiety about the shuttle situation later. In any case, even without seeing that, it was an outstanding day of music, an excellent festival overall musically and I can’t wait to see it next year when the organizers will hopefully have learned from this year.