Old Crow Medicine Show was robbed once. They hope this visit to Charlotte is better
The mandolin was sitting outside Neighborhood Theater in NoDa one second, then it was gone the next, said Morgan Jahnig, longtime upright bassist for Old Crow Medicine Show.
It was probably 10 to 15 years ago, he said — NoDa was a little different then. The band’s lighting designer started to walk all around the block looking for it before happening upon a parked car with the outline of the mandolin case sitting inside.
“(He) broke into that car and stole it back,” Jahnig remembered as the band prepares to make its return to the Neighborhood Theater in Charlotte on March 21.
“Then the owner (of the car) came out and yelled at him for breaking into his car.”
Oh, the old days.
Back to the Roots
Reminiscing is top of mind for the band as they begin their Back to the Roots tour on March 18 in Nashville. The band, a staple in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina, will be returning to the Tar Heel state with stops in Boone, Wilkesboro, Wilmington and Asheville. They love being in North Carolina, says Jahnig, but Charlotte is always a special place to return to.
“I’ve got a lot of great memories of the Neighborhood Theater; definitely one of the earlier, bigger venues that took a chance on a punk rock string band from 1999,” he said.
“I also think it was one of the venues where when you’re out touring, you’re always looking to see who’s on the poster, to see who else is headlining here. And I remember Drive By Truckers was one of the bands that were always big heroes of mine. And I remember, I think it was on one of the tours that they were on the same poster that we were on (at Neighborhood Theater). I remember thinking, okay, we’ve made it. We’ve crossed the threshold.”
With their Back to the Roots tour, Old Crow Medicine Show will be revisiting their early hits, “O.C.M.S.” and “Big Iron World,” by playing them in their entirety. Jahnig said these albums have reverberated through the band for over 25 years of touring, but there are new and old faces joining this time around that’ll make this trip down memory lane even more special.
“I think that there will only be three people on stage who actually played on any of these records and so the perspective that we get from our fellow bandmates is invaluable to everything that we do. The sort of Old Crow historical journey of these records is going to be probably one of the more fun things to see how Joe Andrews interprets Critter Fuqua,” he said.
“Also, we were in our 20s when we made these. We were inexperienced. We were young. We were road-worn and reasonably showered.”
It wouldn’t be right to say the band has enjoyed a rebirth over the last few years as the interest in their shows hasn’t waned. The band has toured with Hank Williams Jr. and plans to join Zach Brown and Darius Rucker this year. They released a Christmas album and toured that last year, and made an appearance on the popular NPR Tiny Desk Concert the year before. Jahnig said he’s happy anytime they’re able to reach new people.”
“We have never left a show ever, that I know of, where somebody said, ‘Boy, I wish we hadn’t hired Old Crow Medicine Show. Or what was that?’ I think that every time in any scenario, whether we’re at Red Rocks or we’re playing in the lunchroom at a high school. People listen to us and are like, what was that? And we’ve been banging it out for years. Where are you? We want you dancing. We want you because live music is so vital.”
For those looking to dance to some Old Crow Medicine Show, they’ll be at the Neighborhood Theater on Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $63 and can be purchased here.
