Gillian Welch & David Rawlings – Tulsa, OK (04/29/26)

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I got to see Gillian Welch and David Rawlings last night. It was wonderful. I’d seen them before several years ago in Memphis. It was one of my favorite concert experiences ever. It was in a small auditorium. The crowd was reverent. Not a soul spoke a word. The music was transcendent.

Last night was a free outdoor concert at the Guthrie Green. That’s a nice patch of grass in the middle of downtown Tulsa. My guess was the crowd would be more rowdy. Free would bring random folks interested in a fun night out. Outdoors, mean people would feel more free to talk and play. Plus there would be all sorts of downtown, city noises.

It turned out to be mostly reserved. It was a nice-sized crowd, but not overflowing. I guess a midweek show kept some people away. Those who were there all seemed to come to hear Gillian and Dave. Periodically I’d hear people talking, and every now and again someone would stand in front of me to get a picture. For the first set there was a food truck, or maybe one of the local bars, playing some kind of bass-thumping music at high volume nearby. That was obnoxious, especially during the quieter songs. But Dave’s big guitar playing usually drowned it out, and it seemed to stop by the second set.

We got a good seat just off to the side of the soundboard with a clear view. The sound was good. The performance was resplendent.

They started with a beautiful rendition of “Elvis Presley Blues”. That was the first Gillian Welch song I ever heard. I still remember when I heard it. I was driving down from Bloomington, IN, to where my wife’s folks lived, about an hour south. It came on the local independent radio station, and I was absolutely struck by it. My wife was riding down in her car because she was staying longer than I was. When we arrived, we both got out and asked each other if we’d heard that song.

The first set mostly stuck to the new songs (from the wonderful Woodland album) and a lot of Dave Rawlings songs that I wasn’t ultra-familiar with (but were still great.)

At some point they brought out the banjo, and David quipped that the show had started properly then. But it was out of tune, so Gillian talked while David tuned. I say she talked, but she admitted she didn’t really have anything to say. That she wasn’t good with banter. It was very awkward and cute.

They had a break and came back with a vengeance for the second set. As a couple, Gillian and Dave make the most wonderful harmonies. Their voices blend together in that magical way that only comes from spending years together with a fierce admiration for each other. David Rawlings is an underrated and absolutely brilliant guitarist. “Revelator” is another one of my favorite songs, and David’s guitar work just roared.

They talked a little about how they visited both the Bob Dylan Center and the Woody Guthrie one. Dave joked that he had a hard time deciding which artist’s song he should play to honor them. He landed on Bob Dylan’s “Song for Woody Guthrie” which was both appropriate and awesome.

For the encore, they covered Doc Watson’s “Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor” and then launched into a brilliant version of “Look at Miss Ohio” to which the entire audience sang along.

Then they played the Old Crow Medicine Show’s “I Hear Them All” which rolled into Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” Guthrie was from Oklahoma, and the Center is located not two blocks from our setting, and the crowd went nuts. They closed with a delightful sing-along of the old gospel tune “I’ll Fly Away.”

It was a beautiful (if a bit chilly) night with clear skies and a big full moon rising just above the stage. The setting was perfect and the music was divine.

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Watch Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings play the Grateful Dead

Gillian and Dave are curretnly doing a small tour where they are playing Grateful Dead and Dead adjacent tunes. None of the shows were anywhere near me (though they are playing a free gig in Tulsa later this month, but it isn’t listed as part of this tour, and presumably will play their own songs). Man I wish I’d spent the money and caught one of these shows. This snippet is amazing.

Bootleg Country: Gillian Welch – Grand Rapids, MI (09/17/03)

I have a long history of not going to a concert and then regretting it for years to come. The reasons for not going usually involve not having anyone to go with/not wanting to go alone, and not being familiar enough with the artist to convince me that the show is a must-see.

That and I’m a cheap bastard.

A few months down the road I usually become more familiar with the artist and begin cursing myself for not seeing them. This happens often in the city where I currently live. It is a college town and large enough to nab artists just before they hit the big time, but too small, and too close to Indianapolis to carry them after that. So usually it is once missed, never see again.

Gillian Welch came to town a few years back and I thought about seeing her. I liked the few songs I had heard of hers, but the voice in the back of my head got to nagging me – you don’t know her songs, you won’t be able to sing along, you should be saving your hard-earned dough – and I didn’t go.

Oh, how I have cursed my ever-loving name for that. How I’ve yearned for her to come back to no avail.

09/17/03
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, MI

Quite simply, Gillian Welch’s voice is nothing short of heavenly.

If there really are angels, and they really do sing, then they must sound like Gillian Welch.

She has some of the most haunting, achingly beautiful songs ever sung. I am reminded of Alison Krauss in that the two have similarly beautiful voices, yet where Alison’s choice of songs often makes no impression on me, Gillian’s own songs and her choice of covers are perfect for her style and often get stuck in my head for days on end. I have been singing “Look at Miss Ohio” for a week now.

This show starts with a triple play of my favorite Gillian Welch songs. “Look at Miss Ohio” starts off the show and it often gets a repeat play around these parts. It is followed by “Elvis Presley Blues” which is the first Gillian Welch song I ever knew, and remains one of my favorites. It speaks of nostalgia, the deep mysterious ache of loss, and the magic of music. It is a perfect song and Gillian Welch sings it like it’s the only song in the world.

My holy trinity is concluded with “Rock of Ages” which is one of Gillian Welch’s rocking-out songs, and by that I mean it has a tempo other than a slow dirge.

Before I go any further, I really must mention David Rawlings, Gillian’s musical partner for many years. David often gets overlooked in writings about Gillian but is very much an important player in her musicality. On stage, he sings harmony and plays guitar, and gives the music a layered and more dense quality.

She follows her trio of excellence with an entire show of great music. It is a show that reaches spiritual proportions. The music is so soft and warm and kind it wraps around me like a blanket near a fire while the cold wind and rain whip about outside.

This is an audience recording and as such we hear the crowd scream and shout between songs at a louder volume than preferable. However, they do keep quiet during the song performances allowing the music to filter in untouched and unmarred.

My only complaint is that the show runs just a tad long. While the music is always beautiful, Gillian’s penchant for playing slow, sad songs starts to be too much by the middle of the second disk. I find myself fully ready for it to be over a few songs before it actually is. I suspect as an audience member I would have begged for more, but as it is, on CD I’m ready for the closure.

It is a great disk by a overlooked performer, whose music really matters. In a world full of dizzying pop songs, flashy lights, and fast-edited videos, Gillian Welch seems more of the past, like some ancient hieroglyph pulled from the very dust of America. It is old, real music that should last another millennium.