Regular festival-goers during Americana Week in Nashville know the challenge of choosing performances to attend, with so many one-of-a kind shows occurring simultaneously all over Nashville. For several years, WMOT Roots Radio has offered a rotating stage of great acts. Held the last two years at the Wash at Eastside Bowl, the sets over a continuous fare of exceptional music, often with smaller crowds as well. The free parking is a bonus.
Lyle Lovett, with his usual dry wit, delivered a mix of his best known hits–“Here I Am,” and “Be My Cowboy Man.”
He opened with “Are We Dancing” and “Pants Is Overrated” from his latest album 12th of June. Accompanied by a scaled-down version of his usual “Large Band,” he wove in his quirky humor and stories. He dedicated “Play the Temperance Reel” to “the ladies…and the ones that got away.” The band also played “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down,” from Down the Old Plank Road: The Nashville Sessions.
Members of the audience called out requests, some just shouting, “Play whatever you want to sing.” Introducing the title track “12th of June,” from his newest album, he shared the origin of the song, telling stories of family reunions at the San Jacinto Cemetery where the Lovetts are buried, which the men of the family while they children played in the creek and the family picnicked.
Lovett closed out the set with a favorite requested by the crowd, “If I Had a Boat.”