Corb Lund performs as proud Albertan
Corb Lund didn’t ride out on a trick pony, but he did the next best thing.
The wildly popular country singer from Taber appeared on stage at Red Deer’s Centrium Wednesday night in a red cavalry uniform, complete with a sheathed sword and a jaunty pith helmet.
“How do you like the outfit? I always wanted to be a North West Mounted Policeman,” said Lund, to a roar of approval from the crowd of 2,000 who had just swayed along to his I Want to Be in the Cavalry and Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier.
The singer/guitarist later changed into cowboy duds. And along with his band The Hurtin’ Albertans, he went on to recount pioneer tales of whiskey trading, rodeo riding, old horses and shaggy steers.
Lund’s song Good Copenhagen expounded on the glories of a good chewing tobacco.
In The Truth Comes Out, he lamented Alberta’s lost wilderness, while his band mate Grant Siemens enhanced the haunting song with his slide guitar.
Lund picked up the pace and enlivened the mood with Little Foothills Heaven, which involved a semblance of old-fashioned yodeling. (It must be said that while Lund is a prodigiously talented performer, his yodeling skills place somewhere behind his singing, song-writing and guitar playing.)
Audience members hung onto every word of his searing ballad Lament for Lester Cousins from his latest CD, about a man who tries to straighten out his life, but fails.
Other crowd pleasers were The Horse I Rode in On, a song about an old-time rodeo, full of “cheers and dust,” and the toe-tapper Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer.
But the biggest hit of the evening was Lund’s infectious The Truck Got Stuck, a song about mounting frustration and the value of neighbourly assistance.
The Hurtin’ Albertans, including drummer Brady Valgardson and bassist Kurt Ciesla, were in great form — Ciesla performed a memorable solo on his bass, or as he calls it, his “Big Bitch Butch Bull Fiddle.”
Dozens of audience members spent the concert two-stepping or bobbing along to the music, shoulder-to-shoulder near the stage.
They couldn’t get enough of Lund, so he gave them an encore — a rollicking performance of Family Reunion that left more people dancing in the aisles.
As the chronicler of all things Albertan, Lund could be this province’s poet laureate, and probably would be if his fans had anything to with it.
“I’ll keep singing if you’ll keep listening,” he told the audience.
It’s a safe bet they will.
Texan singer Hayes Carll opened the concert by admitting he hadn’t seen snow until he was 17 and had never performed in a hockey arena before.
He was forgiven these southern limitations — the crowd enjoyed his set, which incorporated some honky-tonk and a loosely labeled “spiritual” called She Left Me for Jesus.
Contact Lana Michelin at lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
