Living in Texas has many advantages. One of them being a rich history of country music and equally historic dance halls where you can take it all in. We’re fortunate here in the San Antonio area to be within a couple hour’s drive to many of the Lone Star state’s iconic dance halls. So my wife, sister-in-law & her husband, and I took advantage of this proximity to check out some of our favorite bands at Floore’s Country Store in Helotes, TX this past Saturday night.
Image courtesy of Floore’s Country Store (https://www.liveatfloores.com/)
For those who aren’t familiar, Floore’s is located a couple miles outside of San Antonio’s loop 1604 on the Northwest side of town. The drive only took about 20 minutes from our house before we were turning off of highway 16 toward a sea of cars trying to find parking. We could hear a heavy bass pounding while we sat in the turning lane so I cracked the windows to let in the cold April air and the soulful sound of Charley Crockett’s (check out his website: http://www.charleycrockett.com/) voice. We were late, to my frustration, for a completely sold out show. I’ve been on a tear of listening to Charley Crockett lately and really wanted to hear him live. So when we finally made it across the highway I bit the bullet and paid $20 for parking in the closest possible lot. It was worth every penny. We made it through the gates just in time catch Jamestown Ferry, a cover of the Tanya Tucker classic. Charley and the boys had the stage rocking through their entire set (at least the parts I got to see) and played some of their best tracks including “In the Night”.
Charley Crockett and his band
Did I mention the cold April air? We had a surprise norther blow in early Saturday morning so the outdoor show at Floore’s was accompanied by temps in the mid-to-low 40s and a brisk wind. So it was colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra. The only thing we needed koozies for was to keep our fingers from freezing.
After we grabbed ourselves some cold beers, we headed inside the dancehall to get out of the wind for a few minutes before the next opening act. My sibling-in-laws were blown away by the low ceilings cluttered with cowboy boots, hats, Lone Star beer flags, and other quintessentially Texan artifacts hanging from the rafters. Inside the old dancehall was much warmer and we found ourselves some open spots at a picnic table next to some strangers, whom we promptly exchanged awkward “would you mind taking our picture” requests with. We were all amused to see the writing on the wall for anyone who might decide to start a fight on the premises, which was clearly from another time, threatening a “$100 FINE FOR FIGHTING”.
Image courtesy of On the Road with Jim and Mary (https://otrwjam.wordpress.com/tag/john-t-floore-country-store-cafe/)
Just about the time the girls’ fingers started to thaw, we heard the dull pounding of a bass drum from outside and ventured back out to catch Tyler Childers (check out his website: https://tylerchildersmusic.com/) in action. Childers has a raw, kind of raspy, sound to his voice, which pairs pretty well with his songwriting style and ability as a lyricist. As his set went on, we couldn’t help but notice his ginger colored hair that was pulled back in a man bun was getting wild and it pulled its way free of whatever was trying to keep it in place. He and the band played a set somewhere in double digit number of songs and included many crowd favorites including “Feathered Indians”, “Universal Sound”, and even closed things out with their most popular tune called “Whitehouse Road”
Tyler Childers and his band
When Tyler Childers wrapped up his set we decided that it couldn’t be too long before Turnpike Troubadours so we sat tight and, luckily, didn’t have much of a wait. The Troubadours hit the stage like old pros and played “Every Girl“, a song whose subject is a girl who “was born in the morning, late October, San Antone”, as the second song in their set, which got all the folks from SA fired up. The set list included many of their favorites that had the sold out crowd howling along, while front-man Evan Felker schooled us in the art of performance playing his guitar, banjo, and harmonica throughout the night. Turnpike’s unique style of country music left nothing to be desired and sounded just as good as they do on record. They closed out the night with the classic “Long Hot Summer Day” and had Charley Crockett join them on stage to lead one of the verses. It was a sure fire night for the books.
Turnpike Troubadours
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