MUSIC REVIEW: RAILROAD REVIVAL TOUR

Laying Tracks; Mumford & Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

By: Ramus Dahl

April 28, 2011

(April 26, 2011 - Austin, Texas) They say that if you get too close to a moving train, you’re bound to get sucked in. I always dismissed the warning as mere fiction, the stuff of urban legend.  Until Tuesday night.

The Railroad Revival Tour rolled into east Austin and set up stage in a vacant lot of gravel and dust off 4th St. and Waller.  If this tour -- a rambling ruckus of three acts piled into 15 vintage railcars picking and drinking their way across the American Southwest -- is an ode to the mysterious romance between the strum of a six-string to the rhythm of the rail, then the oppressive heat of the Texas sun and the dust cloud from the crowd certainly didn’t stifle the aesthetic.  And when the Old Crow Medicine Show hit the first chords of “Hard to Love,” you could all but see the ghost of the Dust Bowl Troubadour ambling through the gathering crowd.

After they were aptly introduced by the xylophone chime of the train’s conductor (I can only assume), the small string band out of Nashville shovelled coals on the fire with a hefty load of bluegrass, folk, and country blues.  Ketch Secor traded vocal roles with guitarist Willie Watson as the Old Crow Medicine Show picked their way through classic tunes from “I Hear Them All” to “Take ‘em Away,” all the while bringing on the likes of Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons and Stewart Cole of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, among others to help with harmony and add an extra guitar and brass to their sound.  They closed with the beautiful swing of “Wagon Wheel” (accredited to both Secor and Bob Dylan), and set the tone for an evening as majestic as the towering thunderheads that were gathering over the eastern horizon.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros followed Old Crow, and the ten-piece outfit from Los Angeles brought in the cool breeze of the pending storm as the masses gathered inside and outside of the gates.  Alex Ebert seemed inebriated by the sheer energy of the experience of the tour, and the joy this band emitted was palpable from the first chords of “40 Day Dream.”  Nothing new to the “Austin hippy scene," Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros carried the oft-loathed second spot on the bill with a dogged determination to rapture everyone in the audience into their vibrations to the extent that Ebert threw himself into the audience to initiate an impromptu jig during “Janglin’.”  This band is a gospel choir dipped in petruli that preached their homiletic harmony of love, peace, and joy to the back row of passersby along the fences outside the venue and the daring fans who braved to climb the trees to get a better view.  

As the sun cast a sepia glow off the distant clouds and a distant flash of lightning, The Magnetic Zeros brought us all “Home” with a whistle and a trumpet call to the heavens.  This was a powerful performance of desperate positivism against the maelstrom of these dark times, and it testified to the familial, artistic bond and camaraderie of the Railroad Revival, as Jade and Alex and the rest of the band bounced and danced with various members of the other bands on the ticket.

Last but certainly not least, Mumford & Sons took the stage at twilight and opened with the subtle acoustic introduction to “Sigh No More” (the title track of their first LP released in February 2010).  Certainly fueled by the wave of their mounting success (via two Grammy nominations), Mumford & Sons seemed elated to be back in the city where they’ve “played more than any other city in the U.S.A.  It certainly helps,” Marcus Mumford added, “that we played about eight shows here during SXSW.”

The four-man folk rock sensation from London offered a perfect balance of humble ballads with the colliding crescendos of “Roll Away Your Stone.”  While the band satiated the audience with more well-known tracks such as the radio-favorite “Little Lion Man,” “Awake My Soul,” and “Winter Winds,” they offered a glimpse to their follow-up to Sigh No More.  The first new track they played, “Below My Feet,” stayed true to form of the best of their current album, and had Marcus asking, “To keep the earth below my feet / For all my sweat, my blood runs weak / Let me learn from where I have been.”  

Mumford & Sons can certainly bear the weight of their hype, and they are continually pushing the limits of their stripped-down, raw potential as a four-piece through songs such as “Lover of the Light,” featuring Marcus on vocals and drums, and the gentle concession of “Lover’s Eyes,” in which the band harmonizes over the banjo roll, “Do not ask the price I pay for I must live with my quiet rage / Tame the ghosts in my head that run wild and wish me dead.”

There’s no denying the passion of this band.  It's as if they were sown into a patchwork quilt by whatever thread binds the rain-soaked streets and chilled foggy marshes of the British Isles to the abandoned railcars of the Union Pacific and the vineyards of the Salinas Valley.  Whatever it is, they know how to bring the house down, as they called out the entire Austin High School Marching Band to back them up on their finale, “The Cave” -- an epic moment that catapulted an already great night into the annuls of Austin’s live music history.

To close, and in good fashion, all three bands finally took the stage to celebrate the music with the same kinship as the send-off of the The Last Waltz.  All together, they pounded out a barn-burning turn at Woody Guthrie’s “This Train is Bound for Glory” over beer-bottles, dancing, impromptu solos of every instrument within reach, and the approval of the ever-present traveling gnome.  As far as aesthetics, this show was a family reunion of sorts, a musical bond forged on the steel rails.  And, as fictitious as it may seem from this vantage point, the Railroad Revival Tour may carry with it the same legendary potential as the last time three or more bands hopped on a train to tour across the Canadian countryside.

Nonetheless, on the fifth stop of the six-city tour, we all got too close to the train, and we were pulled in.

The Railroad Revival Tour will be the subject of a documentary by Emmett Malloy to be released this fall, according to SPIN Magazine and Rolling Stone.