Tyler Childers Opens Up 2023 Tour By Closing Out Two Step Inn

The most recent Tyler Childers album Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? has already fallen below his 2017 album Purgatory, and even his 2019 album Country Squire in current consumption, despite arriving as a 3-disc, 24-song set, and some regarding it as their favorite. But even though other long-time Childers fans regard the latest release as a little deflating or perhaps as a glorified EP, it hasn’t impinged on the appeal to see him live whatsoever. If anything, that appeal has only grown, and Tyler’s 2023 tour sold out as fast as Taylor Swift’s.

Childers played a few shows in Europe earlier this year, and a warmup theater show in New Orleans late last week. But his first big show on the tour was on the massive stage of the Two Step Inn Festival in Georgetown, TX, just north of Austin, where he was booked to be the festival’s Sunday night (4-17) headliner. Unless you’re one of those shallow fans that only knows Tyler through “Feathered Indians” and “Whitehouse Road,” you didn’t go home disappointed.

The 2023 Tyler Childers experience comes with an enhanced visual component compared to previous tours. Adorning the stage is a wooded backdrop, a couple of moss-covered boulders to give the facade some depth of field, a taxadermied possum and big horned sheep (who’s begging to be named), along with and old console TV, antique chair, coat rack, and other accoutrements to make you feel like you’re entering an old cabin. The TV was even on during the 90-minute performance, playing some old movie or program.

All of this facilitated a cool moment during the show where Tyler Childers pulled out his fiddle, sat down sideways on the old chair, and did an instrumental version of the old standard “Cluck Ol’ Hen.” Far from the scratchy and rudimentary playing of his 2020 pandemic project Long Violent History, Childers now feels much more confident and adept with the bow, and the Food Stamps behind him stretched out the songs and took it to experimental places as they’re known to do. It was an early highlight of the evening.

But it all started with Tyler playing the Platinum-certified “Lady May” acoustically and by himself, knocking out one of his most adored songs right off the bat. He then worked into the newer religious-inspired material with “Old Country Church” and “Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven,” though the latter Childers has been playing for years, and the former is a traditional.

One thing you definitely got a sense of throughout the set, when Childers played country songs, there was a distinct effort to keep them country, and true to the original compositions. His common covers of Kenny Rogers’ “Tulsa Turnaround” and show closer “Trudy” still definitely got elongated and funky, but songs like “Honky Tonk Flame” and “I Swear to God” were served straight.

Childers doesn’t talk much on stage. But he did mumble out a story about having been in Montana a few weeks ago, and then returned to Kentucky just in time for morel-picking season before launching into fan favorite “All Your’n,” which references the edible mushrooms. He also apologized at the end to anyone who didn’t get to hear their favorite song.

If you’ve seen Tyler Childers over the last few years, aside from the stage presentation and the addition of “Cluck Ol’ Hen,” there wasn’t a lot more new that was going on. In fact, when it was obvious that the closer was going to be “Trudy” by Charlie Daniels—which he’s been featuring as his closer since 2019—folks started trying to beat the traffic home as opposed to the night before when Zach Bryan was closing everything out and most everyone stuck around until the very last note of his epic version of “Revival.”

But nobody walked away unfulfilled, unless their wont was “Whitehouse Road,” which has long been retired from the Tyler set. Then similar to Saturday night, a fireworks display burst from behind the massive Two Step Inn stage.

Unlike Zach Bryan who is all aw shucks and relatable, Tyler Childers is much more enigmatic, as is his band that is both understated when need be, and adept and anthemic when called upon. The songs of Tyler Childers have gone from challenging to their mainstream country status quo, to part of the very fabric of this era’s country music legacy, and significantly influential to an entire generation of new performers.

Two Step Inn Saturday night headliner Zach Bryan may have all the momentum at his back and massive sales/streaming numbers to show for it. But he does it from the foundation of the Tyler Childers influence that underpins his sound and approach, just like it does for now a dozen other fast risers who are saving country music in the present tense, fortified by the authentic Appalachia sound Tyler Childers brought forward.

Set List:

1. Lady May
2. Old Country Church
3. Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven
4. Cluck Ol’ Hen (Instrumental)
5. Country Squire
6. Bus Route
7. Creeker
8. Percheon Mules
9. Heart You’ve Been Tendin’
10. All Your’n
11. Purgatory
12. Tulsa Turnaround
13. Triune God
14. Hosefire
15. Honky Tonk Flame
16. I Swear to God
17. Trudy

Big Horn Sheep Name Suggestions:

1. Bighorn McBigFace
2. Clyde
3. Brantley Gilbert
4. Dodge 318 Power Wagon
5. Dolly

– – – – – – – –

For more coverage of the 2023 Two Step Inn Fest, follow Saving Country Music on Instagram. Full festival recap coming.

All photos Kyle “Trigger” Coroneos

Drummer/El Dorodo frontman Rod Elkins, with that look you get when you land in the pocket
Spotlight on bass player Craig Burletic
James Barker
The Professor Jesse Wells
CJ Cain and Chase Lewis
© 2023 Saving Country Music