Angry Times Give Earle A Harsh Edge

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday April 9, 2004

Bernard Zuel

MUSIC, STEVE EARLE and the DUKES, The Metro, April 7

There's something startling and informative in the gulf between Steve Earle's songs from his first coming in the late '80s and those written in the past two years.

Compare Copperhead Road and Guitar Town which appeared about a third of the way through this two hour-plus show and more recent songs such as Ashes to Ashes, Amerika V 6.0 and Conspiracy Theory, which began the night.

That opening salvo was sometimes brutal: both mechanistic in its unadorned harshness and very human in its anger. Copperhead Road and Guitar Town were almost light by comparison, their optimism near blinding. But then they were two Iraq wars and two Bush presidencies ago.

Of course Earle has never shied away from both musical aggression and pungent commentary. It came up in the folky pro-union song Harlan Man and the punch of Taney Town as much as the relative sweetness of Some Dreams and the New Orleans romp of Go Amanda. And we were once again left speechless by the death row chronicle Billy Austin, a song that dares you to look away, physically or emotionally, and found both faith and optimism in the double from last year's Jerusalem album, John Walker's Blues and the title track.

But overall the Dukes leant more towards steel than velvet, making the cover of Nirvana's Breed in the encore appropriate. And the night leant more towards physicality than emotion, which could be in part attributed to the fact Earle engaged the audience a lot less than on previous tours.

If it made for a solid and powerful night rather than a transformative one, well, it's the times, isn't it?

Steve Earle will perform at Byron Bay on Saturday night and on Monday.