Tough Gig

Yesterday I didn’t envy Knoxville’s Scott Miller. He played as part of the National Train Day celebration in New Orleans in the Amtrak Station, surrounded by tables manned by retirees who ride the rails, model train enthusiasts from Mississippi, train safety activists, train preservationists and so on, none of whom are the audience he’s used to seeing from a barroom stage. And with the industrial lobby chairs bolted to bars, much of the audience sat with their backs partially to him. Facing a crowd that had at least as many people who were staying out of curiosity as who were there to see him, he did what any self-respecting, semi-conscious person would do – he got anxious.

“Are you with me?” he asked a number of times, and not in Solomon Burke’s work-the-crowd way but in the you’re-not-going-to-turn-on-me-are-you way. And they were, though this anxiety started to become an issue because it wasn’t warranted. Fortunately, the nerves that accompany seeing your audience (and being seen by your audience) under the industrially bright lights of a train station didn’t affect the performance. He drew “Wildcat Whistle” and “Sin in Indiana” from his new For Crying Out Loud, and his knack for power pop-like songs with more rural subject matter and country-conscious songs served him well – even if he felt a need to apologize in case someone wasn’t getting it.