I have been to a few hundered concerts in my life. I have seen Steve Earle far more than I have seen any other artist. I am now at 26 Steve Earle concerts and I don’t mind traveling to see him. I’ve seen him in Pittsburgh, Greensburg, PA, Harrisburg, PA. Columbus,Ohio, Lexington, Kentucky, Cleveland, Ohio and last night Kent,Ohio. He is always outstanding and last night he didn’t let me down.

He played for two hours and he played a variety of his classics from his career. He got probably his most famous songs out of the way early “Galway Girl” “Copperhead Road” and “Guitar Town” he didn’t play many songs from his most recent album it was more of a career spanning concert. He did play 3 new songs from an album that will be coming out in February. Not sure on the titles but one of the new songs talked about “Burning the Wal-Mart down”.  Steve is a socialist. Usually in an election year he will give his speel on the election. It wasn’t until the second encore that he said anything political. He then talked a good 7 minutes about his politics and who he was voting for {Obama of course} He said that the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is “The Supreme Court” He believes that the Supreme Court can not go any further to the right. That John Roberts doesn’t give a hoot about the health care bill but that he [Roberts} believes he was placed on this earth to do one thing-repeal Roe vs Wade. I love Steve Earle he is my second favourite artist of all times {behind The Beatles} somehow I can always forgive him for his wacked out political views. He is always consistant in those views though. I think I would have been disappointed if Steve hadn’t mentioned the election. I’ve grown so accustomed to it over the years.

One thing I noticed and I try to look for little things. Four years ago I saw him a couple times that summer and when he would talk about who he was for, he’d mention Obama and the place would erupt. Last night when he said he was voting for Obama, the crowd reaction was not 1/10th as enthusiastic. Some people around me were yelling “Play some music”

Steve finished up by talking about the great Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday this year and he said “I am finishing up with a song that they should be playing during the 7th inning stretch after “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” instead of that other song. “This Land Is Your Land” A great way to end the show.