“Thank you for coming,” Billy Strings exclaimed at the start of his concert in Worcester, MA on Tuesday. “We’re here to pick our asses off and have a good time with you!”
The 30-year-old guitarist did just that for his and his band’s debut at the DCU Center, kicking off a two-night run. As is the case with many cities on Strings’ seemingly never-ending tour schedule, Billy has leveled up in venue size for his return to the Boston area. After performing last year at the 5,000-capacity outdoor Leader Bank Pavilion, Strings, Billy Failing, Jarrod Walker, Royal Masat, and Alex Hargreaves made the move to the 14,800-capacity home of Boston Celtics pre-season games and the Worcester Railers minor league hockey team. That size upgrade has not shaken the bluegrass wunderkind’s ability to connect with audiences, as he and his band did while rocketing through a thrilling 27-song performance.
Strings and company opened the show with Bill Emerson‘s “Home of the Red Fox” which quickly departed from traditional bluegrass to the psych-rock stringed hybrid for which Billy has carved out a niche. That cover led straight into the sentimentality of “Must Be Seven” and began the evening’s longest continuous run of originals with the Home track followed by “Heartbeat of America” and “California Sober”.
Over the course of hundreds of shows, Strings’ live concerts have become a finely tuned instrument. But that isn’t to say there isn’t plenty of room to improvise, which Billy and his bandmates are known to do from time to time. Toward the end of the first set, Strings cast off his bandmates and pulled up a stool for some one-on-one time with the crowd of thousands. Though Billy’s solo interludes aren’t anything new, this one came a bit earlier than usual as Strings thought of his home in Tennessee with a cover of The Delmore Brothers‘ “Nashville Blues”. Dropping his weapon of choice in favor of a clawhammer banjo, Billy relayed the sad tale of “Georgia Buck”.
As the rest of the band returned to the stage, Strings turned the audience’s attention to sound engineer Andy Lytle. Ahead of the show, Billy asked Lytle what song the band should play, to which the soundman pulled up the note on his phone “Songs Billy Should Play” and read its lone entry: “Ground Speed”. Billy wisely obliged the man responsible for making him sound good and dusted off the Earl Scruggs cover for the first time since February 3rd, 2022 (242 shows ago) at The Capitol Theatre before the band closed the set with an engrossing game of “Hide and Seek”.
Related: How To Livestream Billy Strings’ 2024 Summer Tour
Back for the second frame, Strings had some more experiments in store. It’s commonplace for the band to close the show with an acoustic song or two around a single mic (and more likely than not, that song is “Freedom”). So fans at the DCU Center likely looked at their watches with puzzlement as the band went unplugged and summoned a single mic in the middle of the second set. For the unplugged interlude, Strings asked the packed arena to get as quiet as possible as he led the band through the ironic hymn “If Your Hair Is Too Long, There’s Sin In Your Heart”, followed by the second major bust out of the evening, Don Robertson‘s “Born To Be With You” (LTP 10/2/22, 162 shows ago). And, of course, the single-mic portion closed with “Freedom”.
The band then returned to its standard configuration for runs through “Streamline Cannonball”, “In The Morning Light”, “Ridin’ That Midnight Train”, “My Love Come Rolling Down”, and a climactic “Meet Me At The Creek” to close out the set. For the final song of the show, Strings managed to track the elusive “Ole Slew Foot”. The Johnny Horton cover is an opportunity for the guitarist to show off his pipes, often stretching the opening “Well!” to impressive lengths. The Billy Strings meme page @train_songz which specializes in this kind of trivia ranked this Strings’ third-longest “Well” (“according to my very unofficial count and unserious timing of all ‘Slewfoot’ recordings on archive or nugs“). Regardless of any official ranking, it was a hell of a way to close the show.
Check out some fan-shot videos from Billy Strings in Worcester, MA on Tuesday. He returns tonight, July 31st, to polish off the two-night run. If you can’t make the show, tune in for a livestream on nugs, free to all subscribers. [Editor’s Note: Live For Live Music is a nugs affiliate. Ordering your nugs subscription or purchasing a download via the links on this page helps support our coverage of the world of live music. Thank you for reading!]
Check out a gallery of images from last night courtesy of photographer Charlie Francis along with some fan-shot videos.
Billy Strings — “Home Of The Red Fox” (Bill Emerson) > “Must Be Seven” [Pro-Shot] — 7/30/24
Setlist: Billy Strings | DCU Center | Worcester, MA | 7/30/24
Set One: Home Of The Red Fox (Bill Emerson) > Must Be Seven, Heartbeat Of America, California Sober > Run Down (Jeff Austin), I Only Exist (Joyce Morris, Jimmie Stanley), Show Me The Door, Bronzeback, Nashville Blues (The Delmore Brothers) [1], Georgia Buck (The Hill Billies) [2], Ground Speed (Earl Scruggs) [3], Hide and Seek
Set Two: Libby Phillips Rag > Blues Stay Away From Me (Rabon Delmore, Alton Delmore, Henry Glover, Wayne Raney), Enough To Leave, Dealing Despair, I’ve Just Seen The Rock Of Ages (John Preston), Thirst Mutilator > Raleigh & Spencer (Traditional), If Your Hair Is Too Long, There’s Sin In Your Heart (Bobby Davidson) [4], Born To Be With You (Don Robertson) [4] [5], Freedom [4], Streamline Cannonball (Roy Acuff), In The Morning Light, Ridin’ That Midnight Train (Ralph Stanley), My Love Come Rolling Down (Eric Von Schmidt), Meet Me At The Creek
Encore: Ole Slew Foot (Johnny Horton)
SETLIST NOTES
[1] Billy Strings solo (guitar) on stool front of stage
[2] Billy Strings solo (clawhammer banjo) on stool front of stage
[3] LTP 2022-02-03 | 242 shows
[4] Full band around single mic front of stage
[5] LTP 2022-10-02 | 162 shows
