Last Friday, Josh Ritter kicked off his tour in support of So Runs the World Away – his new album that dropped last Tuesday – at the Theater of the Living Arts in Philadelphia. Ritter’s wife Dawn Landes opened for him with her backing band, The Hounds. Sticking mostly to tracks from Landes’s latest disc Sweet Heart Rodeo, Dawn and the Hounds played a set of high-energy folk rock before Ritter and his Royal City Band took the stage, flanked by giant lightbulbs that flickered on and off throughout the show.
Ritter played 9 songs from So Runs the World Away, including the first single “Change of Time” and “The Curse,” a story about a mummy who falls in love with a museum curator. The remainder of the setlist was peppered with older material, with “Harrisburg” and “Me and Jiggs” stretching as far back as 2002′s Golden Age of Radio.
After “Lark,” Ritter performed a solo acoustic set including “In the Dark” (which Ritter played with all lights save for the venue’s chandeliers extinguished), a slowed-down version of “The Temptation of Adam,” “Girl in the War,” and finally “Me and Jiggs,” which saw the Royal City Band return to the stage for the second verse.
Following the guitar solo in Harrisburg, the band segued into a cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” with bassist Zachariah Hickman delivering bombastic vocals while Ritter and guitarist Austin Nevins sang backup (Look for audio of “Wicked Game” on Friday as part of this week’s Friday Cover Songs post).
Ritter’s enthusiasm for playing live was obvious and infectious and the crowd quickly overcame its initial reluctance and began singing along. By the time the band closed with The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter‘s “To the Dogs or Whoever,” the crowd was belting out the words.
The band closed with a 3-song encore – Ritter and Nevins delivering an acoustic cover of “Moon River,” the full band on “Snow is Gone” from Ritter’s 2003 album Hello Starling, and Ritter performed a solo acoustic rendition of Conquests’ “Wait for Love” joined part of the way through by his backing band, Dawn Landes and the Hounds providing backup vocals.
SETLIST:
Southern Pacifica
Change of Time
Rumors
Folk Bloodbath
Right Moves
Good Man
Rattling Locks
The Curse
Open Doors
Lark
In the Dark
The Temptation of Adam
Girl in the War
Me and Jiggs
Monster Ballads
Another New World
Harrisburg/Wicked Game
The Remnant
Lantern
To the Dogs or Whoever
ENCORE:
Moon River
Snow is Gone
Wait For Love
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Nice review. One minor correction: There is no title track on the album “Hello Starling”. The song you’re referring to is called “Snow Is Gone”.
Doh! Thanks, Jim – I made the correction. I haven’t listened to that album in a while and the track titles are a bit fuzzy.
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