Wednesday evening not only hit New England with a mess of frozen rain, sleet, and snow, but a classic country musician with a few hits of his own. Dwight Yoakam made his first New England stop of 2015 at the Palace Theatre, located in Waterbury, Connecticut, and the masses of honky tonk fans followed. Dwight Yoakam is a legend in the business, having recorded over 20 albums, selling over 25 million records, and landing 30 singles on the Billboard ‘Hot Country Songs’ charts, and we jumped at the chance to go see the iconic musician on his ‘Second Hand Heart’ tour.
The Palace Theatre is truly an immaculate venue, something that can’t be imagined without stepping foot inside. As you walk in past the marquee, you are greeted by a marble entranceway similar to a New York opera house. We were seated and in awe as we looked around us, Victorian era paintings and designs along to walls and ceilings, with gold leaf and trimming on every edge. With the cowboy hats, fringed jackets, and sequin clothing, it certainly was a sight needed to seen to believe.
Logan Brill came out on the stage first, to warm up the audience with an acoustic performance, her and her two guitar players standing behind. Logan is a singer/songwriter from Knoxville, Tennessee, and has toured extensively across the United States in support of her 2013 album, ‘Walking Wires,’ along with superstars Josh Turner, Steve Earle, Gary Allen, and the great Merle Haggard. She has a fresh twist of country and blues, and it seemed as if Logan expanded a large New England fan base after her performance, with the audience buzzing with more energy and excitement after every song.
As the clock struck 8:30, the king of flair struck the stage, cowboy hat covering his eyes and signature bedazzled denim jacket, and the energy never died from there. Dwight opened his performance with a track off of his most recent album ‘3 Pears’, 2012 hit ‘Dim Lights, Thick Smoke,’ and the hits kept on rolling. He continued his show red hot with classics like ‘Please, Please Baby,’ and ‘Little Sister,’ before rolling full steam into hit ‘Streets of Bakersfield,’ his first number 1 song, a hit with legendary Buck Owens. As Dwight sang the versus he came to the line, “Spent some time in San Fransico,” promptly stopping the band and apologizing, “Wait, wait, it’s much too cold to be singing about San Francisco, let’s try that again!” replacing the city with Connecticut and continuing forward. After finishing the song, Dwight spoke to the crowd for one of the few times of the night, “I got to play up here last year with Eric, but man it’s cool to play my own show!” A few cheers rained down from the crowd reminiscing his 2 night stand at the Mohegan Sun Arena with Eric Church in late 2014.
Dwight played the title track of his upcoming April 2015 album, ‘Second Hand Heart,’ and then continued to play classic hit after another, including ‘Turn it Up/Let Me Loose,’ ‘Things Change,’ ‘This Time,’ and ‘A Thousand Miles from Nowhere,’ before closing his set with crowd pleasers ‘Honky Tonk Man,’ ‘Guitars and Cadillacs,’ and ‘Fast as You,’ leaving every seat in the hall empty, with cheering as loud as the amplifiers and the audience begging for more. What seemed like an eternity passed before Dwight decided to give us one more, hit ‘Suspicious Minds,’ that the crowd knew every lyric and sang every verse along. Dwight then left the stage one last time, and it left everybody in that room thirsty for more, and luckily enough for us Dwight will be back in New England on June 28th at the Indian Ranch in Webster, Mass, and we certainly don’t plan on missing out.
