Old Crow Medicine Show at CMAC in Canandaigua, New York on Saturday August 27, 2022

Old Crow Medicine Show at CMAC in Canandaigua, New York on Saturday August 27, 2022

Wearing a cowboy hat and decked out in denim with rhinestones, honky tonker Dwight Yoakam and his fine band opened up the evening. Yoakam took the stage with no fanfare and along with his group delivered a solid set of hits and covers despite a very minimalistic set up for an amphitheater gig. The music did all the talking and he and his band certainly strutted their stuff with songs like Elvis Presley’s “Little Sister” that put the audience in a roots music frame of mind.  Although he was the opening act, it was a Dwight Yoakam crowd among the seats in first few rows where I was at and it was quite an honor to see one of the legends perform up close.

During the intermission, the guy next to me asked, “Do you know the next band?” I responded with “well, that’s why I’m here. They are an Americana band and they do like to jump around.”

Old Crow Medicine Show launched into its first song with the usual of amount of energy that anyone familiar with the group is accustomed to. Frontman Ketch Secor and his cohorts put on a true show in terms creating a feel-good event suitable for all ages.

Among the highlights were such songs as  “Alabama High-Test” and the interplay of each of the multi-instrumentalists including percussionist Jerry Pentecost who made his way to the front dancing with a washboard. The six-piece band was certainly tight but they played it loose. To sum up the variety show side of things, it invited a crew member to twirl a baton onstage during one of the numbers. Not since folk singer Christine Lavin have I ever seen a baton twirler at a concert. That said, it put smiles on people’s faces. To give the textbook definition of Old Crow Medicine Show you can say it is a Grammy-Award winning Americana group based in Nashville. In real life, Old Crow Medicine Show is a genuinely good time. 7.6/10

Review & Photo by Roman Jones