I caught up with Austin Lucas at a new basement bar and music venue in Knoxville called The Well (where, coincidentally, the talented-in-his-own-right Matt Woods has his day job). When I heard this was his last stop on a U.S. tour filled mostly with house shows and intimate venues, I knew I had to see him.
I have seen Lucas perform twice before: once with his back-up band The Bold Party in Shepherdstown, WV, and once while he was touring with Glossary as his back-up band when they opened for Lucero in Nashville. This time was different, though, because I got to see him by himself, and there is nothing I love more than seeing a musician perform with nothing but his guitar and his voice (and oh, what a truly incredible voice it is).
Lucas did not disappoint. The setting was friendly and loose. He started the show with a new one called “Run Around,” which you can hear below, and ended it with what I consider to be one of his classics, “Go West.”
He took requests throughout the night and continued to play a mixture of old and new songs, one of which he had just written three days prior, “Alone in Memphis.” He even played around with Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (one of my personal favorites by her) upon hearing about her death for the first time while on stage. One of the highlights for me was hearing one of his new ones called “Small Town Heart,” an homage to both John Mellencamp, whom I love, and his hometown of Bloomington, IN.
Lucas spent Monday in Murfreesboro, TN recording some tracks with Glossary, who are his back-up band on his new, currently untitled album. He leaves for his European tour at the end of this month, but you can catch him on his west coast tour at the end of April and early May. He will be spending the month of June performing in Canada and the rest of the summer recording and living in Nashville.
