Music review

LR native gets teary, then rocks the house

He warned the crowd. Told them he probably wasn't gonna make it through the next song without shedding a tear. It was, after all, a tender song about his momma, who was sitting in the audience.

And he was right, he got a little choked up and couldn't finish that one verse.

No matter, though, because the capacity crowd at the Central Arkansas Library System's Ron Robinson Theater was behind Ben Nichols all the way, cheering for the Little Rock native as his emotions got the better of him and clapping even louder when he finished the song, which is called "Mom."

It was a celebratory homecoming show for Nichols, the tattooed, gravel-voiced leader of country-rock stalwart Lucero. On this night, however, Nichols was rolling solo for an Arkansas Sounds Concert. He wasn't entirely alone on stage, though. Lucero band mate Rick Steff, he of the billy-goat beard, was there, along with his keyboard and accordion.

"There's nothing dive-bar about this at all," Nichols, wearing a crisp, white button-down, black jeans and lace-up work boots, said at the beginning of the concert, in reference to his band's normal habitat.

With just an acoustic guitar and Steff's bluesy, juke-joint piano and moody accordion, Nichols made his way through a 25-song, career-spanning pair of 45-minute sets with a brief intermission. Touching on most of Lucero's 10 studio albums, Nichols also played a pair of tracks -- a spooky "Davey Brown" and the title cut -- from his 2009 solo album The Last Pale Light in the West.

He even, at the request from a baseball-cap wearing fan, ran through "Outsiders," a track from his pre-Lucero punk band Red Forty.

"Slow Dancing," and the "The War," the latter a song about his paternal grandfather's experience in the Army during World War II, were both tremendous, as was fan favorite "My Best Girl" and "Mine Tonight." A tender cover of John Moreland's "God's Medicine" was also a highlight.

Sure, he flubbed verses in "Bikeriders" and "Women & Work," but the imperfections are part of Nichols' charm and appeal as a performer and a songwriter. He can make you laugh at his mistakes one minute and turn around and have you shed a tear the next.

Metro on 08/30/2014

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