It’s hard to believe it’s been a month since I was on board the Norwegian Pearl for floating music festival, Outlaw Country Cruise 7. My brain is still reeling and my ears are still ringing from another fantastic Outlaw Country Cruise, which left from Miami, Feb. 21, went to Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas, the island of Cozumel outside of Cancun, Mexico and back to Miami, Feb. 27. Lately takes a lot longer to recover from the best vacation ever, not to mention writing about it. Yet they already put out a call to register for OCC8 without announcing the line up a day after I got home on March 1. I signed up anyway even though it’s a year away as it’s always a good bet they will have a killer line up, which ended up being Blackberry Smoke, Dash Rip Rock and drivin n Cryin and Ray Wylie Hubbard, to name just a few to start. But that’s not until next year.
The Outlaw Country Cruise is always a good time as I always discover my new favourite bands on the boat. I come back drained and alternately inspired depending on the day. This time my new favourites were easily a couple Texas bands The Vandoliers and Mike And the Moonpies.
The Waco Brothers have been my new favourite since Outlaw Cruise 5, so I knew they were going to be great on this boat, especially with a new album out. There was a whole lot of Jon Langford, one of the frontmen of the Waco Brothers, who was also playing with the Mekons and Jon Langford and Skull Orchard.
The other band I was looking forward to was the Old ’97s who are celebrating 30 years together as a band.
Beaming frontman Rhett Miller was a blast. I caught all three Old ’97s and one guitar pull with Miller, but missed his solo show.
They are full of energy and played three very different sets.
“Jesus Love You,” was a highlight of their pool deck show. And “Turn Off Your TV” was an apt highlight of at least one of them.
I also caught all three Vandoliers sets.
Their set in the atrium was a the best, with all six of them crammed onto the tiny stage. They sounded like Elliott Brood but louder and with a trumpet and keyboards and a bare chested fiddle player channeling the spirit of Charlie Daniels.
Most of them were shirtless by the end of their furious and hot set. They bill themselves as your favourite punk band’s favourite country band,” and not without reason.
They were off the hook. They’re in the news now for protesting Tennessee’s draconian new anti- drag law by performing in dresses and auctioning those dresses off for Tennessee LBGTQ organizations.
Atrium shows were the best and most intimate, they felt more like a bar setting where most of the performers are more used to playing.
The Waco Brothers’ best and most dangerous set was also on the atrium stage. They all sported their trademark Waco Brothers ’ sailor hats. Tiny fiddle player Jean Cook was ducking to save her life or to at least to avoid a concussion from bouncing bassist Alan Doughty who was leaping and kicking in his corner, while playing some of the fastest, most melodic bass lines I’ve ever heard while putting on a show.
I only saw Cook only get knocked down once, but he helped her up immediately.
The Supersuckers are always a highlight of the boat. This time, bassist Eddie Spaghetti was everywhere doing triple duty as Supersuckers frontman as well as playing bass for Supersuckers guitarist Metal Marty’s band and playing bass again with punk rock trucking collective the Franklin County Trucking Company, who were another new favourite.
The only musician to play more shows was probably Bill Kirchen was everywhere, playing with pretty much everybody. I only caught one of his own shows, but luckily caught his set ending jam on “ Hot Rod Lincoln,” which ends with a medley of riffs from a cornucopia of hits ranging from country to punk rock.
Everyone loves Bill Kirchen, who was part of Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen in the early ’70s. I heard he even went crowd surfing during Sara Borges’ set.
Outlaw Country Cruisers are a tight knit group of music lovers who are like a family away from the family but from all over the U.S, Canada and even a few overseas cruisers including music lovers and musicians alike hanging out blissfully on a boat.
Bill Kirchen looked a little shocked after receiving a round of applause while getting on an elevator en route to one of his many appearances. The crowd parted for him on another elevator as he rushed from one gig downstairs to pool deck guest spot with Sarah Borges, who is always a cruise favourite.
Her fans set up a Facebook campaign to get her on the boat a few years ago, so she responded by writing a song with Bottle Rockets bassist Keith Voegele called “Got me on the Boat” which is on her most recent album. Borges and her partner Kurt Voegele were everywhere too.
He even got to take centre stage on a late night cruise ending all-star jam of hits hosted by Warner Hodges band to belt out a version of Cheap Trick’s “Surrender.”
I always come home with a lot of great memories and new musical discoveries. I forgot my good camera, so didn’t take as many pictures of things as trying to get a decent shot from a cell phone camera was more trouble than it’s worth so it was really weird to not be officially covering the shows.
With six days of non-stop music, there is always something happening and a lot of highlights so it is essential to pace oneself to catch a little bit of everything without burning out. It’s a lesson I should learn some time, but the first night was front loaded with great shows and pretty much everybody I wanted to see.
I made sure to board the boat early for a great collaboration between Joe King Carrasco and Texas Tornado Augie Meyers, who played a wild boarding show on the pool deck. The two of them were a couple of the many musicians who were special guests on a lot of other musicians’ shows, which is one of the best things abut the boat.
The Mavericks are always a good times so I caught their cast off show, but cut it short because Kathleen Edwards, one of the main reasons I signed up for this cruise was playing her first show in the main theatre, The Stardust at the same time and didn’t want to miss her. Her set and stories brought me to tears a couple of times. Her set was pretty similar throughout. She opened appropriately with “Just another Song the Radio Won’t Play,” played a lot of her new album, and couple old favourites including “In State” and Six O Clock News.” I didn’t hear “I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory” for the first one but she played it at her Atrium show a couple days later. I was wondering how many people would get the Canadian references in the song including “ The Horseshoe” and the CBC,” but a lot of them did.
I rushed back upstairs to the pool deck for Steve Earle’s last show with this iteration of the Dukes. As expected, it was a hit heavy show with “Guitar Town,” “ I Ain’t Never Satisfied,” “Galway Girl” and, of course “Copperhead Road,” on which Earle played his mandolin. He seemed to be elsewhere, performing his best known numbers, basically going through the motions. He perked up for some of his newer songs like the acidic “ It’s About Blood.” The Mastersons’ multi-instrumental prowess added a much needed burst of energy to that set as he promised to play all of his songs about girls for his solo set.
