Sturgill Simpson delivers jam-heavy set at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre

Sturgill Simpson didn’t need us during his performance at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. The great ones rarely do.

Miles Davis. Jack White. Willie Nelson. Their concerts are often free from the performative displays of expectation and scripted surprise. They play for the muse. For themselves. For the music. The crowd is simply an excuse to conjure some familiar magic. Simpson is the same.

He’d play to an empty room. Eyes closed. Musical stories of country and bluegrass and Southern rock and gospel-infused soul surging through him. The wordless dialogue between band leader and follower, elongating songs and creating continuous strings of sound that segue from the familiar to the unexpected to the otherworldly. His three hour concert on Thursday, April 24, was a performance we were privy to, rather than a show programmed to be a dazzling distraction. 

Simpson arrived into this cool spring evening, his first Bay Area show since last summer’s closing set at Outside Lands, wearing a red and white raglan shirt with tight jeans on a dad bod. His matching red guitar plugged in via a coiled cord, eschewing wireless tech. A pure connection. Much like what he had with his five piece band.

Throughout the performance, he turned away from the audience for those nonverbal conversations between himself and his bandmates. Discussions not meant for us. But we got to overhear, and indulge in the spontaneity of familiar tunes becoming artistic explorations. 

Soothing songs like “The Storm” and “Scooter Blues” (from his Johnny Blue Skies alter ego) simply provided starting points before melting into formless streams where whimsy and inspiration took over. These jam sessions became longer than the songs that inspired them, a trait that felt so fitting in the homeland of the Grateful Dead.

In essence, the music became the star, rather than the celebrity singing it. A nice change from contemporary culture where faces and fashion often steal the spotlight in an art form supposedly built on sound. And, credit to the capacity crowd for showing the patience and interest in these diversions. Following the music that folded familiar grooves into ideas borrowed and birthed. Ready to sing when the lyrics returned, often after minutes of instrumentation and usually with Simpson showing no acknowledgement of their presence. When he did, it was bizarre.

“I’m getting over a chest cold,” he said, then apologized for snot balls. “We are after all only human.”

Maybe. He followed that by stating he’s an angelic species who was left on this planet. Then he launched into “Mint Tea” and didn’t stop playing for about an hour, morphing song into song into song. Beyond the improvisation, the tunes took different shapes than their recorded versions. “Life of Sin” had more Southern rock qualities. “Brace for Impact” had a little more swing. 

This is what we’re supposed to expect from our artists — a showcase of their music’s malleability in the moment. Artistic surprise. Yet, at times the crowd felt a little restless from the longing of wanting the note-for-note recreations of recorded music.

They got it later in the set, after a segue into the Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider,” when Simpson dropped the jam band vibe and launched into more proper versions of some of his favored tunes. “Welcome to Earth (Pollywog)” reverted to form, the song about fatherhood that surges with the poignant reflection of missing a child while on the road, was mostly on measure — minus the exuberant punctuation of a horn section.

“It Ain’t All Flowers” also stayed true to transcription, but Simpson didn’t volunteer the cathartic howls that punctuate the song’s power. It wasn’t clear if the crowd was supposed to fill in the blanks — or if they could. He was lost in the song, closed eyes and body gesticulations like those seen in Sunday choral sessions. 

There was a diversion into ’90s rock nostalgia with his melancholy cover of Nirvana’s “In Bloom” and an appropriation of Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade” tucked into his “Best Clockmaker on Mars” — itself built around a riff that sounds like a soul was sold to create it. Both felt like tributes rather than offerings of understanding, like much of his musical career.

It was different with “Party All the Time,” Eddie Murphy’s ’80s pop hit that Simpson has been playing on this tour. This was an interpretation of a song that, at times, has felt unimpeachable. Simpson gave it a reggae lilt and an urgency that left him shaking his head while singing, eyes closed again from the blinding sincerity. Eddie would have approved. Rick James, who produced the original, would not have. The crowd, however, was in awe.

His final acknowledgement of us was the first time he offered the illusion of control, asking if we wanted him to play two final songs, or one “really good one.” He launched into “Fastest Horse in Town” before there was a consensus response, splaying the fuzzy synthesis of rock and blues and country and gospel into the atmosphere while singing “Everybody’s trying to be the next someone. Look at me, I’m trying to be the first something.”

He really is. And God bless him for it.