Returning to Cook’s Garage with a profile and fanbase that never seems to stop growing, Parker McCollum’s show Friday night saw about seven thousand and 10 people having the time of their lives with 7,000 fans in attendance and two bands who absolutely crushed it.
I can’t lie to you guys, I’ve had this date circled on the calendar ever since it got announced. It’s even funnier to say that 6 months after I saw him for the first time when I wasn’t exactly excited to see him. He played Corpus Christi’s annual Spring Break on the Coast show at Concrete Street Amphitheater and sold it out with a capacity of nearly 10,000 people. I wrote a recap of the show and originally that I wasn’t sure if McCollum was big enough to headline the show or if he would even be a good live performer but he erased all of my doubts and blew me away.
So when this show got announced in June, I was already excited to see Parker again, however, I was even more excited when I saw the opening act for the show, Shane Smith and the Saints. Hailing from Austin, the easiest way for me to explain the band is, imagine if Mumford and Sons were actually good. The band features 4 part harmonies, Smith’s fantastic and gravely voice, and some of the best live energy from any band in the scene. I had seen them live in 2020 opening for Wade Bowen in San Antonio and they, without a doubt, stole the show.
The band kicked off the evening as soon as the sun finished setting and…man it might take me a little while to find the words to explain this opening set. This might be because I’ve become a huge fan of the band over the past year or so but just objectively, their set was incredible and set the energy level extremely high. Smith is comparable to BJ Barham of American Aquarium on stage in the way he’ll sing with every vein popping out of his neck while flailing himself around the stage and getting up close and personal with his other bandmates. The setlist for their set was all gas, no brakes, opening up with the Last of the Mohicans intro before launching straight into The Mountain from their 2015 album Geronimo. Their performances of the songs Parliament Smoke and Heaven Knows from the following album Hail Mary could’ve powered me to run through a brick wall as did their performance of their biggest hit, All I See Is You which blew up after being featured in Yellowstone.
I can’t recommend seeing them live enough. After last night, they’ve solidly cemented themselves as one of the best live bands in this section of the country world and I also have to share that Smith and fiddle player Bennett Brown couldn’t have been cooler when I stopped by their merch booth to say hi about halfway through Parker’s set. A quick changeover occurred as McCollum’s team prepared one of the largest productions I’ve ever seen at the venue. Giant LED screens were hung on both sides of the stage along with a bunch of smaller ones behind him, spotlights, video crews, three separate rows of lights all carried by 3 semi trucks that lined the right side of the stage.
As 10 PM grew closer, so did the buzz and excitement in the venue and after a quick introduction by JR from The Red Dirt Rebel, the lights dimmed and McCollum sprinted and spun around on stage to the opening riff of Wait Outside. For the next hour and a half, McCollum capitalized on the things I already thought made him a great live performer but maybe they got turned up a few more notches. That might be because I got to stand a lot closer to him that last time but I think it’s more because of his love for Lubbock and West Texas as a whole. He talked a lot about how the city has always had his back from the very beginning and told a story about how the first time he played in Lubbock, he played for next to no one at a club called Wild West. “What a sh*thole that was, this place is much much nicer,” he said to a lot of laughs and cheers. He also mentioned that he had filmed an episode of Austin City Limits a few days prior which led to a lot of boos to which Parker said, “Look, I know, I know, I wanna see Alabama whoop them tomorrow. But I hope you guys understand that that was a huge milestone for us and it wouldn’t have been possible without you guys.”
McCollum and his band were once again extremely tight and have a ton of chemistry together. Something else that I really enjoyed is that the setlist was completely different from the show I saw back in March and he tends to switch up his setlist a bunch from night to night. An artist of his size can probably write a setlist before a tour, keep it for an entire era, then maybe after the next album they’ll change it up a tiny bit. It’s just a neat gesture to show that McCollum still cares about his shows and wants to give fans reasons to come to multiple shows. I talked to a handful of people who were seeing McCollum for the 4th or 5th time and its little things like that that help keep your fanbase engaged and interested in coming to see you.
The setlist, by the way, was solid. It did mainly rely on his latest album, Gold Chain Cowboy, but as I said when I saw him in March, these songs sound much better live than they do in the studio. A song like Why Indiana has a chorus that’s perfect for his live shows, both that and the song Falling Apart are high energy and give McCollum time to give up the guitar for a bit and show off his powerful stage presence. He also played two unreleased songs, Stoned and Speed. Stoned is a slow burner with an explosive chorus and fantastic guitar solo, Speed is more uptempo and closer to something like the previously mentioned Why Indiana and Wait Outside. The back end of the show was filled by a back-to-back run of Pretty Heart and I Can’t Breathe before he took an encore break, then came back out to close the show with Rest of My Life and the opening track to his very first album, Happy New Year, which is such a great closing song for his shows.
Other highlights of his set for me included getting to stand on the bridge that connects to the above stage suites and hearing the crowd sing along to To Be Loved By You, Meet You in the Middle, and Like a Cowboy. I know I’ll probably have a moment like this again for Cody Johnson’s show in two weeks but it was just really remarkable to hear what 7,000 plus people sound like singing back to an artist that, until recently, didn’t have any major label backing. Another huge highlight was his performance of Hell of a Year which he preceded by a pretty lengthy speech telling fans that he hoped they were having the best year of their lives and saying that while he wrote the song in 2017, it was somehow relevant twice with how 2020 went.
The only gripe I think I have was the most bittersweet part of the show and that’s Parker’s fans. His fans are obviously very passionate and that was evidenced many times by the sing-alongs across the evening and just how loud they were getting. However, the flip side of that was a huge group of people that only showed up for Parker and nothing else. The worst offense was near the end of Shane Smith’s set, I think right before Hummingbird, when a group of fans started chanting “PARKER! PARKER! PARKER!” The same sort of thing happened at the show in March where every opener would come on and would be met by crickets. Regardless, the good did outweigh the bad and I enjoyed getting to hear them singing from the bridge.
This show lived up to every expectation I had for it and then some. I’m very very grateful that I got to go as McCollum and Smith both are incredible performers and entertainers. Both artists are touring throughout the rest of the year and tickets can be found on their respective websites.
Parker McCollum’s Setlist:
Wait Outside
Young Man’s Blues
Stoned
To Be Loved By You
Meet You in the Middle
Dallas
Falling Apart
Like a Cowboy
Never Loved You at All
Blanco County Rain
Handle on You
Drinkin’
Love You Like That
Speed
Hell of a Year
Why Indiana
Pretty Heart
I Can’t Breathe
Encore:
Rest of My Life
Happy New Year
Cook’s Garage will host Eli Young Band on September 16 and Cody Johnson on September 23. Tickets are still available for Eli Young Band but Cody Johnson is sold out with only resale options available. All pictures by Andrew Watters.
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