Pullin’ ‘Tubes | Deer Tick And Jason Isbell Team Up For Simple Man

As we mentioned earlier, this past weekend the tiny New England seaside town of Newport, RI once again played host to the Newport Folk Festival. While we will have more coverage of what went down at the Fort in the coming days (check out Andrew Bruss’s essay on what makes the event so special), there was plenty of news coming from the official after-shows. For the third year in a row “local band, does good” Deer Tick took up residency at the Newport Blues Café for a three-night run of charity shows benefiting the Newport Festivals Foundation and Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

On Saturday night, after an hour-long opening set from country leaning singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle and a brief three-song romp by Providence up and comers The Silks, John McCauley & Co. took to the stage. The band’s 15-song set mixed Deer Tick classics with new tunes from their upcoming record Negativity, as well as a handful of covers including a show closing take on “Call Me The Breeze” dedicated to the late JJ Cale, who had passed away the day before.

Four songs into their set, Deer Tick welcomed Jason Isbell to the stage. The former Drive-By Trucker, who had played the fest earlier in the day and came straight from an appearance across town with Dawes, brought some Southern rock with him leading the charge on a fiery, crowd-pleasing take on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man,” the closing track from their 1973 debut album (Pronounced ‘leh-‘nérd ‘skin-‘nérd).

Let’s check it out…

Deer Tick will hit the road this fall for lengthy North American tour, which kicks off on Saturday, September 14 with their second annual Dudesmash at The Met in their hometown of Providence, RI. The tour wraps with arguably their biggest headlining gig to date at Webster Hall in New York City on November 7.

Written By: Jeffrey Greenblatt