Review: Chris Stapleton’s Charlotte concert was very good. This woman made it great.
More than an hour into his probably-pretty-darn-close-to-sold-out show at PNC Music Pavilion on Thursday night, Chris Stapleton looked out into the sea of faces and felt a pang of nostalgia.
“I’m gonna stop right here,” the 43-year-old country singer said to the Charlotte crowd, in his grizzled Kentucky drawl. “I’m gonna tell you, about nine years ago, the first time I ever got on a stage at an amphitheater — ever — was right here. And I was standing here, with an acoustic guitar, opening for Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers. ...
“So I’m going off the script here, but I just had to say something, ’cause I had a feeling right now that this is a special place for me, and I just wanted to let you know that.”
Obviously, a whole lot has changed for Stapleton since then.
Among many, many other things, since that show on Aug. 3, 2012, he’s earned five Grammys (that’s three more than Skynyrd and the Allmans combined); a slew of Academy of Country Music Awards with the words “Of The Year” at the end of them; a handful of platinum records for his studio work; a mountain of cash money for his touring; and the tag of “the savior of ‘real’ country music.”
But some things have stayed the same, too.
Not just the superficial stuff — i.e. the stringy long hair and the voluminous beard that swallows the bottom half of his face and the upper portion of his chest — but also his ability to command a stage all by his lonesome, unfettered by anything but the low-tilted brim of a cowboy hat in his eyes and an acoustic guitar in his hands.
That’s how Stapleton opened Thursday night’s concert, in fact: Just him, back-lit by a single floodlight in an otherwise darkened venue, using nothing but his guitar and a microphone to create a haunting, stirring, heartbreaking rendition of “Whiskey and You,” one of the best songs off his debut solo album, 2015’s “Traveller.”
And that’s how he did “Maggie’s Song,” a rip-your-heart-out, teardrops-falling-on-your-cowboy-boots cut (off his latest album, “Starting Over”) that chronicles the life and death of a beloved family dog.
Those two performances, however, were the exception. The general rule here was him on stage with his regular crew: J.T. Cure on bass, Derek Nixon on drums, Dave Cobb on guitar, and his wife and musical partner Morgane on tambourine and backing vocals.
In a live setting, Chris Stapleton is a bit of a revelation, vocally and sonically, able to produce note-perfect facsimiles of the already-astounding studio versions of his Southern rock and outlaw country and bluegrass songs and build and improve upon them by adding — when the song calls for them — muscular, gritty guitar runs.
“Parachute” is about the best example of this that I can think of. A verse and a chorus into it, I almost couldn’t believe that what I was hearing wasn’t the album. I mean, OK, maybe I’m getting a little carried away there; but if you know that song, and think about its faster pace and the control he has to have with his voice to hit his marks with that kind of throatiness live ... it’s impressive by any measure. Then, after another verse and another chorus, he’s off shredding a guitar solo that would leave novice country guitarists like Kenny Chesney and Luke Bryan with sprained fingers.
Stapleton’s secret weapon, though, when it comes to setting an overall mood, is Morgane.
If you were at the show, you may have noticed that Chris didn’t make a whole lot of eye contact with the Charlotte audience while he was performing. Instead, he spent a good deal of his 111-minute set looking over at his wife, who was positioned at a mic just eight feet away to his left, also at the front of the stage.
And I have to be honest, I found myself looking at her a lot over the course of the night, too.
Chris Stapleton is the soul of the show, the deliverer of raw, powerful, beautiful lyrics by way of one of the most uniquely arresting voices in country music today. Morgane Stapleton, meanwhile, is the heart of the show, a presence that is warm and playful and effervescent — none of which are words I would use to describe Chris.
So when she leaves the stage, as she did during three songs (she sat out “Cold,” and then also “The Devil Named Music” and “I Was Wrong,” which he performed back-to-back) ...
Well, let’s put it this way: The joy she appears to have as she chimes in on his performances, as she shakes her tambourine, as she swivels her hips and waggles her shoulders, as she looks so adoringly at her husband, it’s infectious.
Chris, on the other hand, doesn’t always look very comfortable or loose on stage.
He sometimes looks like he’s not having nearly as much fun as his fans, like the couple in the row in front of me who combined a slow-dance opportunity with a passionate make-out session during Stapleton’s ballad “Fire Away”; like the middle-schooler with the mullet who stood on the seat between his parents and gleefully sang every word to “Might As Well Get Stoned”; like the guy to my right who hammered away at his air guitar during “Tennessee Whiskey.”
But when Chris could gaze into Morgane’s eyes, or when he could talk to the crowd about her, he seemed to fully relax.
For instance, one of the precious few times during the concert when he appeared to genuinely smile came during the ballad “Millionaire,” from 2018’s ”From A Room: Volume 2.” As he looked toward Morgane and sang “I got a woman with eyes that shine / Down deep as a diamond mine / She’s my treasure so very rare / She’s made me a millionaire,” he truly seemed to be lost in his wife’s eyes.
Another notable case in point came during the end of the main set, when he primed the audience for crowd favorite “Tennessee Whiskey” by singing the band introductions to the song’s iconic melody.
Chris saved Morgane for last but not least, crooning: “She looks so good I wanna put her on a cracker.”
Both of those moments were as smooth as Tennessee whiskey.
And both of them were as sweet as strawberry wine.
Chris Stapleton’s setlist
1. “Whiskey and You”
2. “Nobody to Blame”
3. “Parachute”
4. “Second One to Know”
5. “Starting Over”
6. “Devil Always Made Me Think Twice”
7. “Millionaire” (Kevin Welch cover)
8. “Hard Livin’”
9. “Maggie’s Song”
10. “Arkansas”
11. “You Should Probably Leave”
12. “Cold”
13. “Midnight Train to Memphis” (The SteelDrivers song)From A Room: Volume 2 album
14. “Trying to Untangle My Mind”
15. “The Devil Named Music”
16. “I Was Wrong”
17. “Might as Well Get Stoned”
18. “Fire Away”
19. “Broken Halos”
19. “Tennessee Whiskey” (David Allan Coe cover)
Encore:
20. “Traveller”
21. “Outlaw State of Mind”
This story was originally published August 13, 2021 at 4:07 AM.
