I think we can all agree that reflecting on the first few days of lockdown is neither particularly fun nor constructive. Four years later, it's still hard to process the traumatic strangeness of normal life being put on hold while we're all locked down for the medium term. The plans that were made and discarded, the experiences you didn't even know you were missing, the life you didn't live – it's too much to accept, even now.

In the grand scheme of things, missing a concert might not mean much in this context. But for the sake of entertainment, the show that makes me the most sad that I won't be watching in 2020 is the abridged version of Sturgill Simpson Sound & Fury Tour that started in January and, like everything else, ended in early March, about a month before it was originally supposed to arrive in my city. I had been eagerly anticipating this evening for months, ever since I downloaded a bootleg recording of a gig from last fall in Washington DC that was part of a pre-tour warm-up club tour. The music on this tape was thick, gnarly and, above all, angry, befitting Sturgill's personal temperament at the time. When I interviewed him in February 2020, he spoke about the tour with palpable fear. His previous street campaign in 2017 drove him to substance abuse, he admitted. He also promised that he would never do a “big tour” like this again. So if the Sound & Fury When the tour was later canceled, I suspect Sturgill was rather disappointed.

Flashback to 2024. Sturgill is on the road again and has apparently broken his promise not to do any more major tours. Or maybe not – since Sturgill made this promise and this excursion – mentioned Why not? Tour – officially announced as the “Johnny Blue Skies” show. Doesn't matter. The semantics are irrelevant. What matters is that Sturgill Simpson is playing live again and his current tour is the most musically exciting and absolutely life-affirming live experience of 2024.

The optimal word here is joy. I saw Sturgill last week at one of the seedier venues in the Twin Cities area, and for three hours he played 31 songs with his brilliant band and exuded exuberance. The music just poured out of these guys like aged bourbon into a worn glass – honky-tonk stompers, cranked electric bluegrass, stoned southern rock, psychedelic dueling guitar jams. They played originals from across the Sturgill catalog with powerful authority, successfully blending the traditional country and soul sounds of the early records with the powerful rock of the Sound & Fury Epoch. And they skillfully included covers that served as signposts to show where this music came from: “Midnight Rider” by the Allman Brothers, “You Don't Miss Your Water” by William Bell, “A White Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum, an absolutely apocalyptic song version of The Doors' “LA Woman” and Prince's “Purple Rain” that merged seamlessly with Sturgill's own gently weeping guitar elegy “One For The Road.”

It was the best show I've seen all year and possibly in recent years. It was one of those evenings where you might think: I'm clearly exaggerating how good this was, this must be a “rose-colored glasses” situation. But I know that's not the case because you can stream (or download) the shows on this tour as you walk back to your car in the parking lot. In fact, I'm listening to this show as I type this and it plays like the live album of my dreams: A little bit Waylon Livea little Live at the Fillmore Easta little Absolutely livea little Rock of Agesa little Europe 72. In other words: The good shit.

Let's go back to the optimal word: joy. It's not a feeling that comes through Passage du DesirSturgill's studio debut as Johnny Blue Skies, released this summer. passage contains some of the most beautiful music the man has ever made. It exudes more beauty than any other album in his catalog, perhaps with the exception of 2016's Fatherhood opus. A Sailor's Guide to Earth. But the overall tone is bleak, even sad. Many listeners picked up on recurring themes in the lyrics, such as marital discord and midlife fears. As someone who has tried (and often failed) not to go overboard with armchair psychology when reading an album's liner notes, I'm cautious about speculating on these details. But Passage Du Desir Undeniable deals with loss and the struggle to recognize one's identity when what has defined you has been lost.

Given this tour, I wonder if this sense of loss wasn't more romantic than musical. Sturgill recently spoke about how he almost lost his voice in recent years. He even lost his love for gaming. In a recent interview with the British music magazine UncutHe says a switch flipped in his head when he was invited to attend the annual Dead Ahead festival and given the task of learning dozens of Grateful Dead songs. “I didn't really know them because there was a jam band scene in Kentucky in my early 20s that I dismissed as unstructured noodling and that I placed the Dead in,” he told the magazine. But after looking at the songs, I thought, “Why is this so easy?” It was almost like I could predict where Jerry was going. And that was because Jerry played folk, country, bluegrass and blues, just like I play guitar.”

When he got home, “all I could think about was going back to playing guitar for ten hours a day. I called my booking agent and said, “I want to go on tour.”

That's what I'm talking about: joy. When I listen to these shows – you can hear them all on Nugs.net – I hear a long and cathartic exhalation, a sigh of relief after a long period of stress and depression that comes when you finally realize that the simple joys in life are still there. Like getting together with friends and kicking ass for three hours every night.

Special attention should be paid to Sturgill's band, one of the finest units you'll see on tour this year. Aside from her excellent ensemble playing, there is also a narrative here about rediscovery and reconciliation with the muse. Two of the players, guitarist Laur Joamets and bassist Kevin Black, are back with Sturgill after leaving in the mid-2010s. And then there's stalwart drummer Miles Miller, who has accompanied the man since his rise to fame began more than a decade ago.

Newcomer, keyboardist Robbie Crowell, could well be the MVP. The man has mastered the bar-room boogie-woogie of “Life Of Sin” and the more interstellar tones that glide through “Right Kind Of Dream”, and can also whip out a saxophone in the middle of “All Said And Done” like he's Garth Hudson brings home “It Makes No Difference.” The last waltz.

Then of course there is Sturgill. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he's having a hell of a lot of fun on stage these days. He's smiling big, he's into amps, and he seems intent on destroying any audience that stands in front of him. (The army jacket he wore on stage emphasized the attitude of a “joyful warrior.”) The show I saw ended with “Call To Arms,” ​​which was also the longest number of the night at nearly 14 minutes. Every second of it was earned, and Sturgill implored his band to play harder, louder and faster. The band then launched into a space rock jam, with Joamets sending slide guitar lines to Saturn's outer rings. Just as nirvana was about to be reached, Sturgill steered the song back into “harder, louder and faster” territory, leading the band to a stunning sonic climax. It was part of Jerry Garcia in 1972 and part of the E Street Band Darkness on the outskirts of the city Tour. Like I said: live album of my dreams.

That night you could tell that Sturgill just didn't want to leave the stage. What had once been a public prison – and a place where personal misconduct was encouraged – was reclaimed as a forum for celebration. I didn't want to go either. I wanted to follow these guys to the next show in Kentucky. Unfortunately, I was able to do it virtually by listening to the live recording online. In Kentucky they played even longer: 38 songs over three and a half hours. They played “Crying” by Roy Orbison, which I would have loved to have seen in person. And they may have tinkered with it The breathtaking sequence from the St. Paul show – the transition from an instrumental jam in ZZ Top's “La Grange” to “A Good Look” to the gigantic “LA Woman”. In Kentucky, they placed “La Grange” in the middle, which was nice, but didn’t give the same feeling of crazy momentum.

Nevertheless, the joy was still there. And the joy is what counts. When it first appeared Sound & Fury“A Good Look” was considered a dark, cynical piece of crap against the music business and Sturgill’s belief (or conviction) that he wouldn’t be around much longer. “Well, how are you going to eat if you bite your hand? / Well you know they don't like it when you take a stand / So enjoy it while you can / And say hello to all the boys in the band / 'Cause it's all over now / Just a flash in the pan.”

But on stage now, “A Good Look” is the sound of guys playing like no one is watching. It's just buddies thrashing around in a garage. Are The Doors cool? Who cares? When we play it, it rules. Sturgill called it that Why not? Tour for a reason: Why not choose life? Who doesn't rock? Why not be great?