Photo Caption: Turnpike Troubadours lead singer Evan Felker, left, and fiddle player Kyle Nix, performed last month at Big Texas Dancehall & Saloon in Webster, Texas.
The Turnpike Troubadours, one of the fastest rising bands in the Red Dirt Music scene, always put on a great performance.
The harmonica of lead singer Evan Felker alone adds a lively spirit to the show that distinguishes the Oklahoma quartet from many of its peers in the scene.
“Long Hot Summer Day,” a popular Turnpike song that has gained some publicity because St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Matt Carpenter, a National League all-star this season, uses it as his walk-up music.
I didn’t get to hear that signature songs (or Kyle Nix’s phenomenal fiddle intro), and it wasn’t because I stepped out of the club, Big Texas Dancehall & Saloon in Webster, Texas, for a moment.
But I wish some of my fellow concertgoers had.
Halfway through the show, my friend, Whitney, said she wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t either, but I didn’t know it yet.
Although it was somewhat selfish, I tried to stick out as long as possible. But eventually I knew she didn’t want to stay and we hit the road.
After leaving the club, my eyes began to hurt as I made the 35-minute ride home.
Yes, we heard some of the top songs like “Shreveport”, “Every Girl” and “Good Lord Lorrie”, but it was the smoke inside the club that had caused us to miss about one half of a concert that we’d circled the calendar for months earlier.
Now, I understand that country music and smoking have historically gone together like peanut butter and jelly. Who doesn’t remember Willie & Waylon singing that “Cowboys like smoky old barrooms and cool mountain mornings.”
Oh, how I longed for a cool mountain morning as soon as I stepped out of the club.
This is 2013, and I presume that many country music fans are health conscious and they don’t smoke.
While much of the country has moved away from smoking in bars, it is a local government issue in Texas.
For example, the City of Houston, America’s fourth largest city, bans smoking inside bars. But areas in Harris County, outside of the city limits, still permit it. Webster is less than two miles away from the Houston city limits.
What would be so difficult of asking the smokers to take their butts outside for a smoke?
I’ve seen on more than one occasion, a fan leave a smoke-filled concert because they can’t handle the fumes.
The jurisdictions that allow smoking in bars need to get with the times and understand their making it difficult for non-smoking fans, which statistically are becoming the majority.
And last Friday night, their tobacco interfered with my rights of enjoying live music in the liberty of a smoke free environmental and the pursuit of watching one of my favorite bands.
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