BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//GayOut//Event Export//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT UID:292926@gayout.com DTSTAMP:20261006T030831Z DTSTART:20260926T200000Z DTEND:20260926T200000Z SUMMARY:Joe Pug &\\; Willie Watson –\\; SOLD OUT DESCRIPTION:Joe Pug\\nA singer-songwriter known for his lyrical acumen an d plaintive harmonica style\\, Joe Pug dropped out of college and moved t o Chicago where he worked as a carpenter before breaking into the city’ s music scene. Since 2008 he has released a string of critically-acclaime d albums and toured heavily in the U.S. and abroad. Paste Magazine wrote of his music: “Unless your surname is Dylan\\, Waits\\, Ritter or Prine \\, you could face-palm yourself to death trying to pen songs half as ins pired.”\\;\\nHe has toured with Steve Earle\\, Levon Helm\\, The Kil lers\\, Justin Townes Earle\\, Sturgill Simpson\\, and many others. He ha s appeared at Lollapalooza\\, Bonnaroo\\, and The Newport Folk Festival. His music has appeared on NPR’s “Prairie Home Companion” and “Mou ntain Stage”. His music has been released by Lightning Rod Records\\, w hich features an alumni roster of Jason Isbell\\, Billy Joe Shaver\\, and James McMurtry.\\nAdditionally\\, he is the creator and host of the popu lar podcast The Working Songwriter.\\nWillie Watson\\nSoon before Willie Watson turned 18\\, he met God in an apple orchard. Or at the very least\ \, he met there a man named Ruby Love\\, the older friend of a high-schoo l buddy who had an enormous Martin guitar and a seemingly bigger understa nding of the American folk songbook. Watson was existentially thirsty: A high-school dropout from upstate New York’s Finger Lakes\\, he was fast on his way to his first heartbreak and in a first band that didn’t tak e itself seriously enough. But that night in an apple orchard that had al ways seemed magical\\, at a graduation party for one of his bandmates and best friends\\, Watson and Love sang a few of those old songs together “Worried Man Blues” and “Tennessee Waltz.” It was the first time Watson had cried while singing\\, the first time he had made the connect ion between making music and making sense of his life. He never saw Ruby Love again\\, but within months of that foundational 1997 rendezvous\\, h e met the musicians with whom he’d soon start Old Crow Medicine Show. C all it revelation\\, fate\\, resurrection\\, whatever you will\\; for Wat son\\, more than a quarter-century later\\, it was a duet with the divine .\\nAs told in the talking-gospel masterpiece “Reap ’em in the Valley \\,” that scene is the transfixing finale of Watson’s self-titled deb ut as a songwriter and as a human at last making music to make sense of h is life. Yes\\, Watson has released two albums since he left Old Crow Med icine Show a dozen years ago and since his long-term collaborations with David Rawlings and Gillian Welch.\\nBut those records\\, both titled Folk Singer\\, were sets of tunes he knew\\, interpretations of the songbook he has diligently mined since even before that night in the apple orchard . At 44\\, however\\, he feels that Willie Watson is his first-ever true album\\, having finally lived and lost and simply witnessed enough to kno w he has something to sing with his exquisite rural tenor. Watson has not abandoned those old songs entirely. He dazzles during a robust take on t he forever-curious “Mole in the Ground” and treats “Harris and the Mare\\,” the standard of tragic Canadian singer Stan Rogers\\, with tot al tenderness. But by and large\\, these are his stories of heartbreak an d hurt\\, backlit by the corona of hope that only growth can provide.\\nE very memory\\, Watson likes to say\\, is surrounded by a shroud of sadnes s\\, whether it’s good or bad. And there are lots of memories in a life \\, all mixed: Though the band he started soon after that night with Ruby Love long gave him a purpose and career\\, it conscripted him into a rol e as an old-fashioned folkie\\, forever stuck playing a part that got tir ing. Marriage and fatherhood became boons in their own time\\, but they k ept him bound to Los Angeles\\, its sprawl and selfishness causing a coun try boy like Watson to lose himself again. And there was the stereotypica l excess of it all\\, too\\, the habits of hard living nearly breaking Wa tson in his 30s.\\nBut after he lost those relationships\\, he slowly got sober and faced himself head on\\, working to be honest about the trauma s of his childhood that had helped create the troubles of adulthood. Sobr iety\\, though\\, was never enough for Watson. He wanted that shift to pr ompt change and growth\\, to force him into situations that were benefici al because they were uncomfortable and challenging. That\\, in many ways\ \, is the motivation of these nine songs and the only album he’s ever f elt deserved to bear his name.\\nIn 2020\\, Watson began convening with M organ Nagler\\, an actress and songwriter he’d met years earlier throug h Rawlings. They’d discuss an idea and then often sit in silence\\, scr atching away at it separately as Watson wriggled around on a couch\\, as if wrestling with his past in the real time of the present. Sometimes pla yful and sometimes persecuted\\, the songs that emerged looked backward to move ahead\\, dealing with disappointments in phrases of crisp rhyme a nd sly wordplay.\\nA post-pandemic solo tour had left Watson feeling drai ned by the idea of being some standalone entertainer\\, onstage alone tam ing crowds who had forgotten how to listen amid extended isolation. He kn ew he wanted a band for these songs\\, but he understood they only needed to be the framing beneath them\\, supporting rather than distracting fro m these reckonings with self. Alongside producers Kenneth Pattengale and Gabe Witcher\\, respectively of Milk Carton Kids and Punch Brothers\\, Wa tson assembled a modest ensemble of aces who were largely new to him but would respond to the songs intuitively and without intrusion—bassist Pa ul Kowert\\, guitarist Dylan Day\\, drummer Jason Boesel\\, fiddler Sami Braman. (Careful listeners may note cameos from Benmont Tench and Sebasti an Steinberg\\, too.) Start to finish\\, these songs sound like moments o f mutual discovery\\, the entire group arriving together to look at Watso n’s life and realize something about and for themselves.\\n“Real Love ” harkens back to those days in rural New York\\, with Watson opening h imself to the wreckage that comes with falling for someone for the first time. He is fragile but resolute here\\, pressing on in spite of vestigia l pain. “Sad Song” thrums like some muted and modern Jimmie Rodgers n umber\\, as Watson tries to play-act happiness one more time for a societ y that’s just wanted him to grin and sing. Echoing the rippling and bea utiful despair of Gordon Lightfoot\\, the gorgeous “Play It One More Ti me” examines the fleeting salve of music itself\\, or how the help it g ives us can fade when we’re not truly hearing.\\nAnd then there’s the hotrod acoustic opener\\, “Slim and the Devil\\,” a wits-sharp adapt ation of the Sterling A. Brown poem “Slim Greer in Hell.” After being disgusted by the imagery of white nationalists taking over the streets o f Charlottesville\\, Watson pulled a book called “\\;The Black Poets ”\\; off his shelf\\, and the first page he opened was Brown’\\ ;s poem. The story of a Faustian bargain made with St. Peter at the pearl y gates in exchange for one more earthly adventure\\, it’s a sly contem plation of the meaningless deals we make to endure when we all know what s inevitable. For Willie\\, the story is second to the honor aimed at t he poet himself “\\;because history has told me that all the people in his position have been robbed by white folk artists and completely cas t aside.”\\; And then there is “Already Gone\\,” a devastating i f elegant survey of the damage we leave behind as we make bad choices\\, as we force people to leave our lives. “There’s no hearts to break he re\\,” Watson offers before the knockout. “They’re already gone.” \\nThese days\\, Watson looks askance at his old reputation and knows oth er people do\\, too. “‘I thought you were just some nice little singe r who sang in the little fucking cowboy hat\\,’” he deadpans\\, chara cterizing the perception he knows he has in many ways courted. And he rec ognizes that people probably don’t think he can write his own songs of meaning and depth\\, since he spent so long reworking those of others. Fo r a long time\\, he bought that\\, too. But the hat is off\\, as is the d esire to be a mere entertainer or interpreter. The nine songs on Willie W atson find a bona fide songwriter dealing with the difficulties of his pa st to suggest a renewed future\\; what’s more\\, he uses his keen and e xpansive understanding of an old lexicon to add his own new entries to it . As with the best folk songs\\, you will recognize your own burdens here . As with the best folk singers\\, you will feel compelled to sound them out\\, too. Who knows\\, maybe you’ll even meet God in an apple orchard .\\nFood &\\; Bar: Our full food and drink menu will be available befo re and during the show.\\nhttps://www.gayout.com/usa-canada/united-states /columbus/events/joe-pug-038-willie-watson-8211-sold-out-2026-09-26 LOCATION:nataliesgrandview.com URL:https://www.gayout.com/usa-canada/united-states/columbus/events/joe-pug-038-willie-watson-8211-sold-out-2026-09-26 STATUS:CONFIRMED END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR