Every 23 years or so, my wife and I go to the Palace Theatre in Albany to see Alison Krauss and Union Station, featuring Jerry Douglas, perform. We last saw them in 2003; Alison is one of my wife’s “K girls,” along with Diana Krall.
Since my wife’s birthday is in July – she really is difficult to buy for – the concert, on July 22, a day before Alison’s 55th birthday, was the obvious choice. The show was called Arcadia, in honor of the 2025 album that the band talked about here; it had been 14 years since the band had put out a music collection.
The opening act was Theo Lawrence, a young country singer, mostly alone with his acoustic guitar, who performed tunes from his most recent albums Chérie and Pickin’ & Singin’, which he was later selling vinyl copies of. He had an authentic country timbre for a dude who had been, according to a review, born in France. They were solid songs that could have come out six or seven decades earlier. Lawrence was joined for a couple of solid songs by Phil Hollie, a friend who has joined him on tour.
Main event
Alison Krauss and Union Station performed a bunch of songs I presume were from the Arcadia album – guess what my wife is getting for Christmas. The group played more melancholy songs and less bluegrass than I remembered from last time.
Texas-born singer Russell Moore was great. She still had her longtime banjo/guitar picker, Ron Block, and bassist Barry Bayles. The new kid on the block was the mandolinist Jacob Burleson, a solid, confident player.
Of course, dobroist Jerry Douglas was Jerry Douglas. A concert highlight was his unaccompanied solo spot on a medley of “American Tune” (Paul Simon) segueing into “Spain” (Chick Corea). But my favorite part of the show was the encore, where the band members sounded like they were standing around backstage warming up; it reminded me of the Million Dollar Quartet standing around.
At various points, the house lights would come up, and Alison would share stories about the various band members, which was highly entertaining.
One criticism of the show was that it was a bit warm, okay, hot in the Palace with what appeared to be a packed house.
