By DANNY ALEXANDER
As Ethan Hawke pointed out in his Rolling Stone story on the songwriting giant, Kris Kristofferson has always been ambivalent about his performance skills. "Sometimes I hate it," he admitted in an early interview. And Friday night, he made numerous jokes about his abilities. After "Come Sundown" he made the comment, "Sounded better when Bobby Bare did it."
But the overwhelming feeling of the evening was a sense of appreciation. "You're the best audience I've ever had," he said at one point, and it certainly didn't feel like he said it every night (and even if he does say it every night, it still sounded like he meant it). The comment was believable because the appreciation cut both ways. The Uptown Theater crowd sat in rapt attention, relishing every moment the 72-year-old artist gave them.
He gave a musical feast in the simplest terms possible. Dressed in black with a guitar and a harmonica, Kristofferson sang 33 songs written over four decades, each one as powerful as it's ever sounded. His guitar playing and occasional harmonica riffs were always simple, never flashy, and that felt right. It seemed more than a sketch of accompaniment would only distract from the power of each song.
Similarly, Kristofferson may sound older than the hills -- his breath a little shallow and that gravel voice all the rougher for its wear -- but he sounds like he's grown into the voice meant to sing these songs. Songs like "Darby's Castle" and "Casey's Last Ride" have a mythic quality that particularly benefits from the wisdom in an older man's voice.
And then, of course, there's the quality of sadness that so well suits a man in the twilight of his career. Kris Kristofferson's written some of the saddest songs anyone could imagine, but their sadness tends to come from a bittersweet place, a celebration of a moment long gone or certain to end. It's in that "make believe you love me one more time" of "For the Good Times," but it's also in his most recent songs, like "Final Attraction," a tribute to his buddy Willie Nelson and the tradition that binds them together. Urging his old friend to sing one more for all of those artists (everyone from Roger Miller to Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix to June Carter to Ray Charles) lost over the years, he calls to Willie "go break a heart." He adds, "including one time for me."
Perhaps the song that most clearly defines a through line in Kristofferson's career and in this particular evening was the one he sang after someone called for him to sing his 1973 hit "Why Me," (the only one of his songs that actually went into the Top 20 with him singing it). He responded to the call with "But then I'll be done. Let me sing a couple more before that."
And one of those couple was "A Moment of Forever," a song he wrote in 1995 celebrating a relationship that's over. The celebration comes with the sentiment, "I'm so glad that I was close to you for a moment of forever." Braided with the deep compassion and love of freedom that fuel his left politics, that celebration carried the evening, a sense of eternity in a moment soon to pass.
1. Shipwrecked in the Eighties
2. Darby's Castle
3. Me and Bobby McGee
4. The Best of All Possible Worlds
5. In the News
6. Here Comes That Rainbow Again
7. Johnny Lobo
8. Help Me Make It Through the Night
9. Casey's Last Ride
10. Nobody Wins
11. The Heart
12. From Here to Forever
13. Anthem '84
14. Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)
15. Shandy (The Perfect Disguise)
16. Come Sundown
17. Star-Crossed
18. Duvalier's Dream
19. Jody and the Kid
20. Just the Other Side of Nowhere
21. The Pilgrim--Chapter 33
22. Beat the Devil
23. Pilgrim's Progress
24. This Old Road
25. The Promise
26. Final Attraction
27. Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down
28. Silver-Tongued Devil
29. For the Good Times
30. Love Is the Way
31. A Moment of Forever
32. Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends
33. Why Me?
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