Live music review: Alison Krauss and Union Station masterful in Lake Charles

The stage was set as if a play were about to begin. Little did I know we’d travel back in time with the performer. We were taken on a journey to a time when singers knew how to sing and musicians knew how to play.  And you had to have real talent to showcase live music the way these artists presented the show.

On stage there was an antique bicycle, 1940’s style bus stop benches, old lanterns, beautiful curtains, finely crafted lamps and rustic tables. The stage pieces alone were beautiful and peaceful enough to spend time admiring them. The stage was also adorned with top grade musicians, performing with expert skills, while strangely at ease with their own masterful accomplishments. This was Alison Krauss, & Union Station as they appeared at the Golden Nugget in Lake Charles, Louisiana on October 11.

Krauss was born the summer of 1971, making her 48 today.  She was just 14 when she started recording music for Rounder Records in 1985 (1987 was first record release) launching a 37 year career in music. She made a name for herself in bluegrass, but over time has crossed into mainstream country stages. Her angel-soft voice is just as powerful as it is subtle. It creeps up on you with stillness that is difficult to explain or understand with rational thought, but moves into your soul and chills your very being. She is peaceful yet haunting all at the same time. Krauss sings with intensity as reverent as it is quiet and purposeful.

Current members performing on stage include Barry Bales on bass. Jay Bellerose plays drums. Ron Block assumes guitar, banjo, and vocals duties. Sidney Cox (a founding member of The Cox Family, a bluegrass favorite) plays resonator guitar more commonly known as a dobro. Jeff White employs guitar and vocals. James Mitchell also plays guitar, and Matt Rollings tickles the ivories on the most beautiful piano ever built.  Rollings sat with his back to the corner of the right side of the first row allowing fans a grand look at his polished, gorgeous, vintage wood grain piano. This arrangement also brought his energy and expert hands right up to the edge of the stage to be envied by lesser players in the audience.

                        
Krauss also plays the devil out of a fiddle in addition to being an amazing vocalist.  She appears to be no stranger to classic styles. She knows when to resin it up and when to add the softest of notes to complement her songs. She easily moved from classic bluegrass, to less traditional “new grass,” to barn-burners and a capella songs.

Krauss has been noted as a singer of love songs, mostly lost love songs. There is a beauty to sadness.  I feel it is one of the most important of all emotions that appear in songwriting. Absent sadness we would enjoy creativity in a completely different way. If anything truly beautiful wasn’t inspired by darkness of the soul or despair found deep with someone’s mind then I don’t know what is. This everlasting sorrow connects listeners. It speaks to them and influences a certain type of peace in knowing they’re not alone in their low moments. It bears new life, an innate ability to overcome, absolutely anything, triumphing in memorable art.

To say you get your money’s worth out of an Alison Krauss and Union Station show is an understatement in the extreme. When you mix all the ingredients together, from the set pices, to the choice of timeless songs and the beautiful  musicianship, it all came together magically and picked us up and carried us away to a simpler time. There we listened to  music and remembered a time when life seemed less complex and more honest. A time when craftsmanship mattered above mass markets and music itself wasn’t bottled in some big city recording studio like a factory and mindlessly distributed to the masses. Nothing about Alison Krauss & Union Station is representative of the current country music cannon. Alison didn’t “follow rules” of country or bluegrass. She sings from her heart, but with the precision of a lifetimes practice. Krauss cuts softly into notes like a skilled surgeon and opens up a storehouse of music, memories and passion.

Krauss has released thirteen albums and contributed on a number of others.  Her live show is as good as any I have seen. The performance leaves you with the feeling that she and the members of Union Station set up in your very own old world living room and blow the floor boards out from under the audience.

Allison Krauss & Union Station are currently on tour. There are two remaining dates. Tonight Krauss and company play Charleston, South Carolina and tomorrow the tour concludes in nearby Columbia. Tickets are still available.

Setlist

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