Gig Review – Orville Peck

I have never seen so many tassels in my life and I’ve been to the country music hall of fame. For the first time in a long time, I’m not the only one in the room who looks like they just stepped off the set of the Johnny Cash Show. I would have been annoyed by the sheer amount of cowboy hats obstructing my view, if I didn’t know that they were all being worn by such kindred spirits. Everyone's here to see the same cowboy after all.   

Orville Peck walks on stage, dressed in cow print head to toe: cow print hat, cow print tank top, and a pair of cow print chaps that I would die for, most likely in a Mexican standoff with one of the many other western wear enthusiasts in the room. It’s all topped off with his iconic mask, a symbol, which I think, will soon come to represent the future of country music. 

Peck’s voice fills the room in a way I wasn’t expecting. There’s a power to it that hasn’t  been captured on any of the recordings I’ve heard. I find myself really moved and am transported back to a night I spent in a Texas salon last summer. Me and my three friends shared the dance floor with few elderly couples and twirled each other round to the tune of a live band, until we were politely kicked out for not having ID. There was a certain kind of romance to that evening. I didn’t think I’d be able to experience that back in London, but Orville Peck and his band bring it here. 

He takes everything great about country music and presents it as something new. Something really stylish and cool, but it’s really pretty old fashioned. He sings Queen of the Rodeo and explains that it’s about drag queen. In a lot of ways, he seem’s like a drag artist himself, but instead of satirising gender stereotypes, he’s satirising country stereotypes. In the process, he reveals something behind the genre’s rhinestone incrusted exterior that has been lost in modern country pop; the vulnerability of a real story teller. 

Country music was always the folk music of America; the songs of the story tellers. Maybe it always was a kind of drag. Southern musicians first adopted the western cowboy style to avoid being stereotyped as hillbillies and rednecks. It evolved into something camp, theatrical, and comedic, but it was also never afraid to be political. Just listen to Loretta Lynn’s song The Pill or any of the other feminist country anthems that became huge hits despite being banned from radio play. 

Orville Peck is the perfect ambassador for the cowboy counter culture that is redefining what it means to be the cowboy. Towards the end of the show, he takes a moment to say he appreciates how diverse the crowd is and it really is diverse. At no point have I felt like anyone here was just trying to jump on the yeehaw band wagon. I’m pretty sure I’m surrounded by some genuine country music fans and they're more diverse than you might have expected. The only thing that’s not diverse is their dress sense. 

Slider & the Goose