Lyle Lovett & John Hiatt, Music Center at Strathmore, 1/19/2017

Orchestra Center, Row E, Seat 101 – great location, 5 rows back, on the right-hand aisle

 

I see Lyle Lovett with his Large Band nearly every year at Wolf Trap. I’ve also seen John Hiatt a few times, both with a band and solo, although not for quite a few years. Seeing the two of them on stage together, with just their guitars and Hiatt’s harmonica, swapping songs and stories for 2½ hours, was a completely different experience, and definitely worth the cost of admission.

 

Hiatt’s setlist – the two of them alternated throughout the evening – was heavy on geography, as his first three songs were “Drive South” (which opened the show), “Adios To California”, and “Detroit Made”, and he addded “Memphis In The Meantime” and “Tennessee Plates” later in the show. Lyle kept the feeling going by starting with “North Dakota” and adding “Up In Indiana” later. While Hiatt stuck strictly to his own compositions throughout, Lovett was a little more eclectic, covering tunes by Eric Taylor, Guy Clark (the wonderful “Step Inside This House”), and Michael Franks. The latter, “White Boy Lost In The Blues”, was one of the show’s highlights, featuring Hiatt blowing a pretty mean harmonica, and preceded by a discussion of blues greats like B.B. King and John Lee Hooker whom one or the other of them had opened for over the years. Other high points included Hiatt adding some guitar licks to Lovett’s “She’s No Lady”, and the two of them trading verses on Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love” (followed by a great story involving Lovett, Bonnie Raitt, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott).

 

The encores were Hiatt’s heartfelt version of “Have A Little Faith In Me” and the two of them performing Lyle’s “My Baby Don’t Tolerate”. Just before that, the main set had ended with “If I Had A Boat” (my personal Lovett favorite), “Crossing Muddy Waters”, and a touching ballad by Lyle that I couldn’t recall ever hearing before. I did remember enough of the lyrics to Google it this morning, and discovered that “Simple Song” was from his Pontiac album, which I had owned for years. Obviously I haven’t listened to the CD in far too long, a situation I plan to fix later today.