For the 3rd time in 13 months, I found myself at a Jessie Murph concert. This was the first show of her “In the Sticks” tour and it took place in Wallingford, CT at The Dome at the Oakdale theater.
The first time we saw her was at a small club in Boston and she was riding high on TikTok success. The crowd then was a lot of young girls and their parents. The next time was a larger venue in Boston with a similar audience with some more adult fans mixed in. This time around? Wow.
For the first night of a tour, they started right out of the gate with problems. Something had happened to the planned opening act and they had to shuffle. Jessie’s brother Garrett Murph and her other guitarist (Eli I believe) opened instead. They threw together a country duet, had some fun, and got to play stuff they don’t play with Jessie. Both Garrett and Eli are actually pretty good guitar players and singers. Eli (again, I believe that’s his name) can actually play some pretty sweet electric solos as well. I enjoyed their set, though I didn’t know any of the songs. But they both got to be front men for once.
Sometime after their set, there was a mini brawl right in front of us complete with shoving, spilling of drinks, throat grabbing, several bouncers, and a couple of club ejections. As always, there was music blasting, but all the drunk peeps decided to scream along as if they were performing them for the club. C’mon…Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow’s Picture isn’t a scream-along-with-good song, but yet that’s what they did. Now, I’ve been going to shows for a long time, and never felt the need to get plastered. Most shows, I don’t drink at all. I love concerts and want to enjoy the show, pay attention to the performance, and actually remember the night. But here are my observations about this audience: they definitely like to get plastered.
Jessie’s audience (for this show at least) has mostly shifted to adults. There are still some teens, and a I did see a handful of much younger kids, but it’s mostly adults. I think her duet with Jelly Roll has brought in the Jelly Roll crowd. There were a lot of young women who put on their best, I don’t know, “skank gear” perhaps? Their best tight, scant, revealing clothes and makeup. Then they consume as much alcohol as possible probably before even getting to the club and continue to drink as much as they can afford while there. Same for the adult dudes. They put on their best ball cap, jeans, and black t-shirts, and consume as much booze as possible throughout the night.
Jessie Murph came out to a mini remix version of Wild Ones but the first full song was While You’re At It. It was quite obvious from the beginning of the show that she had a lot of pre-recorded vocals mixed in with her live singing. This was different than previous shows, I’m not sure why she transitioned. She did a song or two before going into If I Died Last Night and then Cowboys and Angels. She snuck in a cover of Rihanna’s S&M, did a couple of ballad-like songs, and then a new unreleased song. During this new song, she stopped the show to call for what she believed required a medic in the crowd. Nope, just another drunk asshole who was either fighting or passing out – I didn’t see it right away. But security, not a medic, escorted his ass out. She did her Texas song, her new one Son of a Bitch, a few others, and ended the show with Wild Ones.
Now, throughout the night she did that Vince Neil move where she sings a line or two and then holds out the mic for the crowd to sing along. I can’t stand that. But these drunks were happy to sing along as I pointed out earlier. My big issue with performers who do this is we didn’t pay to hear a bunch of a drunks sing the songs. We paid because my daughter wanted to hear Jessie Murph. When she restarted the song after the drunk was escorted out, they picked up where they left off but she didn’t seem ready. But wouldn’t you know it, her voice was still coming through even though she wasn’t singing. Pre-recorded nonsense. I’m sure it was backing tracks, but still.
Throughout the night, she just didn’t seem to be into the show. In addition to barely talking with the crowd (outside of “how y’all doin” the occasional “thank you” and “sing along if you know it”) the night had a rowdy crowd, she had to stop the show once, she had the crowd sing like 40% of the show, and her planned opener wasn’t there. She did one hour and 15 minutes and was out of there. No encore.
More fights took place when the show was over. There was a big group of douchebags shoving and punching each other, slamming into things, and knocking stuff over. They dumped a giant mustard dispenser off of a bar and made a giant mess, covering one girl’s pants. I’m sure she was thrilled. Then they all drove home.
Great fan base Jessie. Not sure what happened.
Leave a Reply