Concert review: John Craigie at Asheville Masonic Temple
The sold-out audience gathered at the Asheville Masonic Temple to see folk vagabond John Craigie on Jan. 27 could best be described as giddy.
Even in the conglomeration of humanity that is the venue’s balcony, everyone was rapt and ready for the one-man show. And it’s easy to see why — from the moment the Portland, Ore.-based songwriter stepped onstage and worked his way through a rambling tale turned rambling tune about Beethoven dissing his two and three-chord compositions, Craigie lived up to his motto of “Humorous Storytelling, Serious Folk.”
At first glance, Craigie is just a dude onstage with a guitar and a harmonica headset. His hair is only slightly shaggy, and his button-down shirt rolled up to the elbows and jeans dipping a toe into bellbottom territory exude bohemian chill. He is humble and self-deprecating, with an “aw shucks” charm that stops short of straying into false modesty. He seems as bewildered as anyone at the place where he’s found himself.
But Craigie’s storytelling — drawn from his time on the road, wayward adventures at folk music festivals, and micro-dose mischief with fellow songwriters — was as hilarious as it was relatable. His tales of escaping Philadelphia on tour or getting dressed down at check-in for a songwriter’s festival were met with laughter and claps from the crowd, which never seemed impatient for him to get on with the next tune.
Because that’s where his stories were always going, leading seamlessly into his expertly written folk songs that were sometimes funny, sometimes heart-aching, and sometimes both at the same time. Case in point: “I Wrote Mr. Tambourine Man,” about a fellow in a bar who made that very claim, started small, relying on the absurdity of the situation, but then expanded into a soaring recurring lamentation: “Ain’t it a shame/Nobody sets anybody free anymore.”
Craigie is excellent at the folk style popularized by Woody Guthrie and weaponized by Bob Dylan — the kind of rambling tune where maybe the lyrics don’t all fit neatly into the stanza, or a rhyme may have to be cobbled together by flipping the emphasis of a syllable. The technique is always good for some chuckles and “Aha” moments, and its casual, good-humored insubordination suits Craigie to a T. And despite well-worn comparisons to Mr. Guthrie, the view from Craigie’s vantagepoint reminded me more of Woody’s son, Arlo.
Yet Craigie can be sneaky, drawing you in with charm and humor and then laying a sentiment down that makes you think, “Wait a second: this guy is really saying something.” In the fan favorite “Dissect the Bird,” the first verse centered on whether the singer’s fly was open, which doesn’t seem like a place from which to launch into a full-hearted and repeated proclamation that “The universe is not against you/It went through a lot to give you chance/It must have wanted you pretty bad.” But that’s what Craigie did, and when the message hit, it stuck. The song’s chorus, “Oh, you’re doing it wrong/Dissecting the bird/Just to find the song/It’s a miracle that you’re here at all,” seemed to lift everyone in the room.
But Craigie is not confined to Woody’s talkin’ blues boxcar — he can do longing, too. The songs “Distance” and “Microdose,” from 2022’s Mermaid Salt, were contemplative, witty, lonely, and wry. “Don’t Ask” and “Part Wolf” thrummed with an underlying sexiness, and despite any expectations from the title, “Laurie Rolled Me a J” strutted with defiance.
Not to let things get too heavy, Craigie dropped the as-yet-unrecorded number “AOC,” satirizing strange Trump-era theories that U.S. House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a witch, and laced it with fiery faux warnings and spine-chilling references like, “She got that black cat and broomstick/She got that Toyota Prius.”
That is the kind of non-rhyme not many would try onstage, but Craigie isn’t afraid to put it out there just because it’s funny. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, and that’s something that separates him from a lot of folk singers. In fact, it would not seem he takes himself very seriously at all, except that he writes with both a cleverness and a humanity that people seem to seek out. He’s in a class of songwriters, alongside folks like Dan Bern and Todd Snyder, who deserve much more than comparisons to past folk heroes. These musicians stand on their own, albeit in sneakers or frayed jeans.
But maybe I’m trying too hard to pick up and analyze every breadcrumb Craigie is dropping. So, I’ll stop dissecting the bird and just say that if you get a chance to see John Craigie, you will likely enjoy the show.
(Photo by Benji Wilson)
