There’s an archaic concert tradition started by the Gen Xers that spilled into elder Millennials. It’s that you don’t wear a t-shirt of the band you’re seeing to the band’s concert. In hindsight, the rule is dumb. Wear whatever you want to whatever concert, even if Jeremy Piven scolded Jon Favreau in 1994’s PCU for the same exact thing.

Wednesday at Skully’s Music Diner. Nick Shoulders and The Okay Crawdad featured a crowd full of folks wearing Nick Shoulders shirts. Which, again, is completely fine. As one of those early Millennials though, I grabbed a black band shirt and headed out the door. Bomb the Music Industry, to be exact.

After all, the Nick Shoulders show is only my second country concert. Not of this month or year. Ever. Three months ago, it was watching Willi Carlisle in a sardine can-packed Rumba Café.

Early on, there was a familiar feeling in the air. Foreshadowing the night, I noticed I wasn’t alone in my choice of attire. Walking in front of me was someone in a cowboy hat and jean vest with a prominent Operation Ivy patch donning the back. Then it was an Asian Man Records hoodie. It felt like home.

When the entertainment for the night began, the feeling got stronger.

Up first was Nat Myers, a Kentucky blues poet who mesmerizes with quick blues riffs. At the same time, adding a deep, bass-filled, singing voice that doesn’t sound like its coming from someone in their early 30s. Instead, it sounds like an old blues musician stereotype. Myers tells stories of the region. With “75-71,” a story about looking for his girl. A song full of imagery of trains, floating down the river and the interstates that cuts through Kentucky and beyond.

Nat Myers during his opening set at Skully’s Music Diner, on April 24, 2024

Speaking of his own travels, Myers spoke early on about his trip from Cleveland to Columbus. Joining Shoulders in Cleveland, Myers talked about driving from Canton, Ohio over to Columbus and getting a speeding ticket in the process. As a Canton-area native myself, I knew it was Rt. 30 before seconds later Myers confirmed it. Adding that maybe next time he’ll only go 10 over instead of 20.

Myers also talked about his own upbringing. The blues singer, playing solo on stage with his bright silver steel guitar, was born to a white American soldier and his Korean mother. In “Yellow Peril,” the title track of his label debut album, Myers shares the casual racism directed towards his mother and himself. 

“Started in China, lordy, you headed to my back yard, lordy / Comin’ off the boat, headed up ‘cross the land, lordy / Tellin’ me that you lookin’ like a yellow man, lordy / Down to Louisiana, headed up to Michigan, lordy.”

It wasn’t only tracks from “Yellow Peril.” Myers played new songs, including a new addition to his road repertoire in “Yellow, Blue & Red.

Although alone on stage, Myers’ work couldn’t help but grab attention. By the end of the set, the growing crowd showed its appreciation for the blues artist. The only critique to find is wanting more, the sign of a great opening act.

While the music of the night shifted genres, the idea of music based not only on individual experience but real-life issues continued. With Shoulders, it amplified.

When Nick Shoulders and The Okay Crawdad come out, a band featuring an electric guitar-playing lead, narrow upright bass player and drummer, it’s to more of a hard rock band’s intro than a group out of Arkansas. Shoulders walks up last, wearing a black hooded cape, holding his acoustic guitar.

Shoulders steps up to his mic stand, complete with a stand for his blood chalice, and ends the introduction whistling into the mic. Something that happens frequently in the set, alongside yodels and country singing that sounds more like it was out of the 1920s than 2020s.

Hearing a Nick Shoulders set isn’t just about an artist who has shares his deep roots in a genre that’s mainstream equivalent looks far and away different from where it came. To hear Shoulders is to know more about Shoulders.

Wednesday’s concert was a makeup event from the fall. That’s when Shoulders cancelled a chunk of dates in Ohio and surrounding states with throat issues. A fact he acknowledged early on at Skully’s. A cancellation that people no reasonable person can fault. Artists outside of arena concerts aren’t hauling in money that allows for much downtime. Giving full refunds, which I can confirm personally, and returning soon after falls in line with the common-sense message Shoulders shared all night.

Nick Shoulders at Skully’s Music Diner, on April 24, 2024

The healthy-sounding Shoulders played a set worthy of waiting five months to see.

Saturday night, I saw the fuzzy-sounding indie outlet Alvvays at Newport Music Hall. Between songs there wasn’t much besides switching out guitars and the occasional quick message to the crowd. With Shoulders, he told stories, explained songs and shared his own beliefs that resonated.

For example, before “Ding Dong Daddy” from Shoulders’ 2019 Okay, Crawdad release, Ohioans learned how they too could become a Ding Dong Daddy. A process that includes taking in some fine, brown, Lake Erie water, adding gas station cheese and taking it down on top of a rust belt smokestack.

He also shared his heritage. From his grandma Mimi teaching him how to sing, like on Shoulders’ “Too Old to Dream,” from the same Okay, Crawdad album. Then it was “G for Jesus,” after talking about his grandpa Pat M. Riley, who passed down his vibrato to Shoulders. Music you can hear on YouTube thanks to Shoulders uploading the music himself.

Practically every song had a story. They were never out of place and created a flow throughout the night where context enhanced chords and lyrics. For instance, “Hank’s Checkout Line” went from another song on an album to a track about gentrification.

Projecting stiff musical genres, invented by people, onto the set wouldn’t classify Nick Shoulders and The Okay Crawdad as punk. However, as Shoulders reminded folks in attendance, country is the “working class voice of dissent.” It’s about public lands and not the private, get out of America if you don’t love it, country on the radio.

Shoulders made it clear that everyone belonged, from all walks of life. He also gave perspective, sharing that as much as the world wants to make issues right and left, it’s really about the top and bottom.

While the outside package might be different, although Shoulders and The Okay Crawdad are much louder than your average country show, the foundation stays the same. No surprise coming from someone who grew up as a teenage punk. Included in the set was a punk-style callback song too in “After Hours,” off his debut album Lonely Like Me.

“Not a lot has changed,” said Shoulders.

Through the hour plus spent on stage, Shoulders went through his four Garhole Records, a label he co-founded, albums. It wasn’t a set to show everyone his new songs off 2023’s All Bad, but still included the title track and “Appreciate’cha,” to name a couple.

Before “Appreciate’cha,” a song thanking those small acts of kindness up to being cautious of capitalism, leadership and white supremacy, Shoulders thanked the crowd. Included was talk about the life of an artist. Specifically, the dreams folks in the crowd have towards about that life. After sharing its struggles, Shoulders uplifted the crowd for working every day and making a living. Especially when it’s no easy feat.

In terms of an encore, there was one but not with everyone running off stage and hiding for a few seconds before coming back out. Shoulders, who put his hooded cape back on after removing it after the first song of the set, sang acapela as The Okay Crawdad took a break.

All night, Shoulders stretched his vast knowledge of country music, sharing various styles of it. A lifestyle he learned on a gravel cul-de-sac in Arkansas. Even though he was in the Short North of Columbus, Ohio, an area known for clubs, traffic and tourists, the music just fit.

The set, and the night, ended unpredictably (or maybe extremely predictably?): With a mosh pit. Appropriately enough, on the Iggy Pop and the Stooges cover “No Fun.”

A group of 20 or so concertgoers channeled their inner punks as lights flashed. Nick Shoulders and The Okay Crawdad played through its loud and live rendition. At the same time, the crowd expelled its remaining energy of the night.

I left with a Nick Shoulders shirt. One of my first country artist shirts, or another punk shirt?

Cover photo by Nick Futch