Justin Townes Earle & Joe Pug in Chapel Hill, NC

Justin Townes Earle & Joe Pug
Carrboro Arts Center
March 10th, 2010

Tonight was JTE's and Joe Pug's last night of their early 2010 tour -- actually a make-up from an earlier date in January that was snowed out. The house was nearly full with a very, very attentive audience. "Attentive as shit!" as Pug said.

I'd never seen Joe Pug live, but his newly-released, first album Messenger has captivated me, and although I'd seen Justin Townes Earle a few times live, I really wanted to see how they'd perform on the same stage. I was absolutely not disappointed.

Joe Pug was on first as a solo act. Although the singer-songwriter-guy-with-guitar-and-harmonica bit can be a little old, Pug rose to the challenge and delivered a solid, entertaining one-hour set including several crowd favorites. The highlight of the set was the anti-war ballad, "Bury Me Far (From My Uniform)" – up a half-step, as he said, "to live the f'in dream." Pug was charismatic, in complete control of his guitar and voice, and enunciated his amazingly well-written songs clearly and emotionally. My only complaint – although his few comments between songs showed him to be a great entertainer and intimate with the audience, I had hoped to hear more stories from him. I think this is difficult when you're the opening act and short on time.

Overall I'm hooked. Consider me an A+ Joe Pug fan from now on! I picked up his earlier EP Nation of Heat and a t-shirt to prove it. I see from his upcoming tour dates that he'll be performing both with Horsefeathers and Josh Ritter in the next few weeks! Holy crap I hope y'all make it out to see them!

As for Justin Townes Earle, this was by far the best performance of his I've ever seen. He usually has played solo or with his mandolin-playing, drinkin' buddy. Tonight, however, he came complete with a thunderous bass player and a wonderful fiddle player. The sound was much rounder, fuller, and with the extra two sets of vocals, much more interesting than usual &ndash and he's usually pretty damn interesting! Justin's become quite a story-teller too, and I really enjoyed the banter between the songs. My only complaint was that Justin's phrasing felt a little off at times, sometimes jumping the beat of the song, sometimes dragging out notes longer than was needed.

Since this was the last show of their tour together, there was a bit of horsing-around between the bands. During Pug's last song, the epic Hymn #101, JTE and his band came out on stage to distract Pug, including having the bass player drape a pair of her panties on his guitar. Pug countered by closing his eyes to them to stop from laughing, unplugging his guitar and stepping away from the mic. With only his acoustic guitar and his own vocal chords, he pushed Hymn #101 into the crowd, earning a standing ovation. Then during JTE's encore, Pug came on stage to play Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City.

In short, I'm still a huge JTE fan, fueled on by this new live show, and I'm now a huge Joe Pug fan. Y'all come on back to North Carolina again soon, now, y'hear?