REVIEW - Charley Pride in Concert

Charley Pride in concert at the Mullingar Park Hotel, November 11, 2009

For as long as I can remember I’ve been passing posters or flipping the page on ads announcing a Charley Pride concert or twelve. One of the grand old men of American country music, he never seems to spend a year without touring Ireland. But his most recent tour caught my eye as it was with some gusto that its co-promoters, Aiken Promotions and Showtours, announced that this would be Charley’s 20th and FINAL Irish tour.

‘Right so,’ says I, ‘time to go and check out Charley.'

The first (and practically only) black country and western star, Pride is one of the Top 20 best-selling country artists of all-time with over 70 million albums sold, 31 gold and four platinum albums - including one quadruple platinum. He has been responsible for an astonishing 36 number one hit singles. On RCA Records, his home for 30-odd years until they parted company in the 1990’s, Charley Pride is second in sales only to Elvis Presley.

Even as a casual observer of country music, I was more than familiar with many of his chart toppers but it seems there is part of Pride in every corner of Ireland as most of this tour was sold out. I chose to see him in the Mullingar Park Hotel, purely because it was down the road. Locally, the gig hadn’t been advertised much, but there was still over 900 people who had forked out close to €50 each to see the man himself, and most of those were in their seats within seconds of the doors opening. In fact, most of them were there an hour beforehand.

Family pride is a big thing for Charley and has been over his last couple of Irish tours apparently, so the supporting acts were his younger brother Steven and his son Dion, whom Charley has been trying to ‘launch’ in Ireland for some time - with mixed results it has to be said. As both men went through the motions with Charley’s own band – a bunch of country and western old-timers with one token young fella out front on violin - the man himself stood at the back of the hall out of view to all but a few over-excited roly-poly pensioners who nearly throttled him with hugs and incomprehensible midlands gibberish. One has to hope that Charley himself didn’t understand (or hear) the comments of other, more casual audience members who, upon entering the function room and noting there was a black man on stage in the distance, shouted to each other “he’s on!” and raced up towards the front.

It was purely by accident that I ended up standing beside him, but he was warm and engaging company, and it was he who struck up the conversation. When his brother Steven sang a rather affectionate take on George Jones’ majestic “He Stopped Loving Her Today” Charley asked me if I liked Jones. Well, what could you say? Jones is the King of Country as far as my family is concerned. My father is a passionate Jones fan, and practically all of my youth has been sound-tracked at some point by the music of ‘The Possum’ – be it in the car, in the house, or indeed in the house as the car pulled up. Often, when he was coming home after a night’s work, Dad would have Jones turned up so loud in his car that we would hear him coming a mile up the road. I told Charley of my appreciation for Jones, the owner of perhaps the greatest voice in country music, and the old crooner smiled. “Yep, he sure had a good voice.” Like Charley, Jones is still touring. Unlike Charley, Jones is showing the signs of his age, something those who saw him on his Irish tour last August confirmed.

Meanwhile, up on stage in the distance, Stephen carried on, singing a few standards and a few songs of his own in a gentle manner befitting the older profile of the audience. As he finished up to a volley of kind applause from those who had figured out he wasn’t, in fact, his more famous brother, Charley motioned that his son would get the audience going. He was clearly appreciative and encouraging towards Dion, whom had started out singing and dancing to Michael Jackson and James Brown. Perhaps he should have stayed singing pop and funk as, despite his best efforts and his obviously decent voice, he’s just not country. After about four songs, Dion told an audience already thinking of their bed-time that he likes to rock it up a bit, and so he introduced “a toetapper” called Girl something-or-other. He finally struck gold with the seated army when he told a story behind a song about “supporting your own”. The audience nodded in appreciation thinking he was on about home towns and local businesses. The fact that Dion was trying to tell them the story of setting up an independent record label didn’t matter. Anyway, in the handing-over-the-baton stakes, it was Stephen Pride one expects to be seeing more of on the country scene.

After a short interval (and after the bars closed), it was time for Charley’s under-stretched band to return to the stage and usher on the great man himself. After a speed wobble, the sprightly 72 year-old appeared to applause as wild as one gets with a crowd whose average age is over 55. His first song was something about happiness, a toe-tapper as his son might say, though the tapping toes of the Mullingar Park Hotel would barely dent the carpet. A totally harmless cover of “I Don’t Know Why I Love You (But I Do)” followed by country standard “Do What You Do Do Well” brought a sense of comfortable familiarity to the night. These are songs that Irish country singers are still knocking out night after night, and Charley’s audience lapped them up as if they were new. Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” was a complete and utter curveball to hear in such gentle surroundings and it ushered in the drummers first use of his cymbals. Wow! Then, the gentlemanly side of Charley one has read about for years came to the fore. Noticing someone trying to take a photo from the second row, he hopped off the stage, got the camera off them and then got back up and took a photo of himself with it. He then found out who the person was and dedicated the next song to them. Cue the sound of melting hearts and cooing “aww’s”. Later he answered several notes handed up to the stage with requests and shout-outs. It was all very tender.

In recent years, music fans have become all-too-familiar with the so-simple-it’s-genius concept of an act playing one its classic albums from start-to-finish. Well, with no true classic album to his name (despite selling over 70 million of them) Charley Pride instead leads his band on a run through of one of his Greatest Hits albums, but instead of hearing the full tracks we are “treated” to the choruses of dozens of them. It’s a bit of a swizz really, as songs like “The Snakes Crawl at Night”, “Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger”, “All I Have to Offer You Is Me” and the classic “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” are template country tracks which, by virtue of being the first number ones recorded by a black country artist, broke down insurmountable barriers in the notoriously conservative world of country music. So, it’s a shame that Charley is only paying them scant attention by including them in hackneyed medleys. A lot of older artists, from Joe Dolan to Johnny Cash to Status Quo, have fallen into this trap, and it’s a mystery why. Are they ashamed of their early hits?

After he wheeled out “Crystal Chandelier” the show then took a nosedive from which it never recovered, despite a re-appearance of “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” later on. An engaging man with the microphone, Charley then went off on a ten minute sales pitch for his latest selection of CD’s and DV’s which just happened to be on sale at the back of the hall. He then spoke about his gospel albums which, conveniently, were on sale at the back of the hall. He then talked about a set of wonderful photographs, also on sale at the back of the hall. His book? Well, you know where to go if you want to buy iy. And if all that wasn’t enough, after the concert, Charlie, his son and his brother would also be down at the back of the hall signing produce which, quelle surprise, can only be bought at the back of the hall.

It took some time for him to recover and the rest of the hall only came alive when Charley began to name-drop people he’d worked it during another lengthy speech. The very mention of the words “Dolly” and “Parton” drew out what can only be described as a sort of male rural Irish “phoarrr!” When he mentioned Jim Reeves it resulted in wild applause echoing around the hall – possibly the loudest cheer of the night - but when Willie Nelson was mentioned there was pin-drop silence. Charley then played a selection of songs he did with this lot, the titles of which I can’t remember, sullied as my brain was by the sales pitch and Ireland’s apathy towards the great Willie Nelson.

Strangely enough his sales pitch was beginning to take effect and as he gently eased his way through his back catalogue I went back to investigate the back of the hall along with several other bored audience members. I could hear my sneakers squeak such was the silence at the back of the hall. During the support acts, as I stood at the back of the hall with the man himself, it wasn’t that noticeable, but if I had forked out 50 quid to sit at the back of the hall beside the merch and a mile away from the stage with little - if any - view I’d be talking to Joe the following afternoon. It was, well, odd. Not in a Row Z sense, but worse than that.

The Mullingar Park Hotel is one weird place for a gig. Boasting a capacity of well over a thousand this massive hotel function room is shaped into an unusually formed ‘L’ to accommodate its own foyer/reception and a variety of ‘wings’ which, depending on the client, can be made into one huge whole, or sectioned off. That huge carpeted whole is then filled with row after row of seats. All on a flat floor. Naturally enough this configuration is going to throw up all kinds of sound issues, and concerts have been few and far between here, despite it being the biggest ‘hall’ in the midlands. Daniel O’Donnell did well here, as did Christy Moore and the resurrected Big Tom. But ‘younger’ acts have been less fortunate. Despite the alcohol-fuelled excitement of a near-capacity crowd The Saw Doctors played a stinker here, as did The Blizzards whose state-of-the-art PA and Oxegen-friendly pop sound was lost in a haze of carpet and echoes. It was similar for Charley. From the middle of the room, everything is fine and dandy. But if you’re down at the back of the hall, then good luck.

Over the years the ‘hall’ has been more accustomed to hosting everything from political party AGMs to nursing organisation think tanks, home exhibitions to leather jacket expos, and GAA dinners to major conferences, most of which come with a great big feed. It’s also a popular wedding destination - indeed I have DJ’d several here over the years - but no matter what event I have attended here I’ve never truly forgotten what I was in – a soulless, practically windowless, multi-purpose function room. So, it was a kind of sad night then. One I’ll remember as much for the back of the hall rather than what was actually happening up on stage at the front. It’s not as if there was anything wrong with the show, it’s just that it lacked anything remotely resembling an atmosphere. The band barely made an effort, and although he was warm and friendly up there on stage and he has over 30 years of hits to choose from, Charley was simply going through the motions as only a country veteran can – with ease and efficiency. Sure, most of the 900 fans left with smiles on their faces and a gospel album or a signed photo in their arms, but if the truth be known, what they had experienced was more akin to what normally happens in soul-less multi-purpose function rooms – they were fed. And it was fodder they dined on, not the a la carte promise they had probably hoped for.

Charley Pride’s Irish tour continues all this week.