held a sold-out crowd at the transfixed Wednesday night with his lyrical tales of “Restless” women and “Fraulein O.”
He played mostly the older tunes (including the lovely “Just Us Kids” and a churning, guitar-burning “Choctaw Bingo”) that have made him beloved. In fact, several people yelled out, “We love you, too!” just to try to get a reaction after “She Loves Me,” from the new release “Complicated Game,” his first full-length since 2008. As with all of his efforts, though, a required closer listen reveals that itap not really about love – it is indeed complicated. McMurtry’s band – bassist Cornbread, drummer Daren Hess and Tim Holt, who’s as talented on the accordion as he is on lead guitar – was as serious as he was, and they came out in their jeans and cowboy boots and got the job done.
The famously laconic McMurtry was typically sparing in his interactions with the crowd, checking in once to see if everyone was “Still there?” and perking up – if it can be called that – only at the end when the corner of his mouth twitched as he wedged a joint he’d been gifted from the stage floor into the nut of his guitar.
The band ended the set with the plaintive “No More Buffalo,” and McMurtry returned for a solo encore to share the equally melancholy “Lights of Cheyenne.” Then he tipped his hat and was gone.
