EDMONTON - The solo singer-songwriter gig really separates the men from the boys - and you better believe that Kris Kristofferson has the coconuts to be able to pull it off.
The man is an institution. His very face is a weathered monument. His songs are great American tragedies, except when they're comedies. His grizzled pipes represent the Voice of Wisdom from the Deepest Gravel Pit of Hell - or perhaps somewhere else. If there's a movie featuring God being made in the near future, Kris is just the man for the role.
By himself at the River Cree Casino last night, the 72-year-old icon of American country music held more than 1,600 fans in rapt attention, hanging on his every word. His guitar was out of tune, he sometimes forgot the words to his own songs, he used that dreaded "round-the-neck" harmonica holder, which ought to be illegal, and in one tune had the wrong harp for said holder - but did we care? We did not. And neither did he. Kris used his minor brain farts for self-deprecating humour at every opportunity.
"Old age ain't for sissies," he said at one point.
With only his acoustic guitar for accompaniment, the songs were stripped to their bare bones. Nothing to get in the way, not a shred of commercial Nashville high production, just the man alone with his songs. That's when you know if you have a good song, if it works in that setting. We heard dozens of his classic gems last night - tragic tales, true stories, drunken adventures, heartbroken laments, it was an emotional roller-coaster.
There were antiwar songs, of course. And when a former soldier like Kristofferson sings antiwar songs, you're going to listen no matter what side of the argument you're on. It was pretty clear where he stands. Songs were peppered with political remarks. At the end of Nobody Wins, Kris growled, "George Bush and Dick Cheney were singing this song together in the shower - nobody won."
That seemed to go over pretty good.
Mostly though, we heard one sad story after another. Storytellers are suckers for drama. There was Darby's Castle, about a guy so wrapped up in building his wife a great house he didn't notice she was cheating on him. That's gotta hurt. In the News - from his latest album, This Old Road - begins with a gruesome murder before stuffing all the woes of the world into one bitter tune. The song ends with God himself pleading for the end of the war.
COMIC RELIEF
Comic relief came both from Kristofferson's folksy stage patter and some of the material itself. As good as the cry-in-yer-beer tragedies were the drunken adventures like Best of All Possible Worlds (with a poke at America's high incarceration rate: "That's right, son, we're No. 1").
Naturally, the crowd went wild for the hits - Me and Bobby McGee knocked off early, Help Me Make It Through the Night and others coming later on. But it was clear from the rapport Kristofferson maintains with his fans that the hits were just the bonus to an already satisfying night with one of the greatest songwriters of this generation - warts and all.
Sun rating: 4.5 out of 5
