Bad Copy

Just over a month ago, I was standing in a parking lot on a little peninsula of Manayunk in Philly for Dave Hause‘s Sing Us Home Festival. I couldn’t help but notice singer/songwriter Will Hoge standing next to me, enjoying the band onstage. The night before, during the Hause Family Campfire (a musical round of sorts), I was freshly introduced to and instantly enamored by Will and his songs. While the sounds coming out of his mouth are pure Americana, the lyrics are filled with the anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian, humaneness that I initially was drawn to in punk. (We can argue about if I still feel that way about the genre after spending two decades of my life submerged in it, but that’s a conversation for another day).

I walked over to Will and we quickly fell into a conversation about the similarities between punk and outlaw country. Before we parted, he told me that he had some shows in or around Chicago later in the year. My motto has always been: Will travel for good music and core memories. Flash forward to me heading out of Chicago just under two hours away to Ottawa, IL – a place I had never been.

I had pulled into town with a list of nearby thrift stores in hand and parked by an old Knights of Columbus building, complete with stained glass windows, that was now an arcade, complete with pinball machines. After the thrift store, I walked through downtown Ottawa to take in the sights. There was The Roxy, a theater with a vintage neon sign; a whole row of bars, coffee shops, and restaurants brimming with people; and there was the block I was searching for, a block framed by two churches, both of which had been turned into performing arts spaces. As someone who spends their free time photographing architecture (both of the abandoned and non-abandoned varieties), the venue for tonight’s show was a part of the draw to get me 90 miles away from home with gas prices above $4.

I took my seat in a pew (yes, they left them perfectly in place) and watched the crowd trickle in. The mayor of Ottawa took the stage just after 7PM and welcomed Will Hoge onstage. Will cracked a joke about the irony of having a mayor welcome him to the town instead of running him out of it and we were off. The set list was ample and spanned a good amount of his 14 albums. “Favorite Waste of Time,” “Even the River Runs Out of this Town,” and “Still a Southern Man” sounded amazing in the confines of the church. Will also played a handful of songs off his latest album, Sweet Misery, which was released last August. Prior to playing “Postcards and Payphones” off the album, he shared that it includes a line about exit 53 on I-65, which is the exit for Cave City, KY and Dinosaur World (if you don’t know, look it up). Despite my three prior trips to Dinosaur World – the most recent of those being in March – I hadn’t even realized the connection! But now the song is adhered even more to my heart. He also played “Jesus Came to Tennessee” which to me, is Will at his finest songwriting. It’s clever and catchy and tells a story that makes you smile each time you hear it. “Little Bitty Dreams,” a song I had not heard live before, stabbed me right in the feels and I started to well up. I looked around to see if anyone in the crowd noticed, but they were thankfully all too entranced to pick up on my sniffles.

It was somewhere around here where Will took a beat before his next song, sighed, and said “You don’t get this far in your career without doing some stupid things and I’m about to do something fucking stupid.” He stepped off the stage, walked over to a piano that had been tucked away into a corner, sat down and began to play. No microphone, no speakers. He didn’t even know it if was in tune when he sat down, but it was. He sang “All the Pretty Horses” clear and loud and beautifully as the church picked up and amplified each note. It was one of those gorgeous and powerful experiences where you’re so wonderfully present in the moment while your brain reminds you that THIS is what music is! This is why you keep coming back. It’s beautiful and chaotic and tender and deeply moving. As Will walked back onto the stage, the person in the pew in front of me muttered “God damn.” There were no other words for it.

While there was still more setlist, two obvious crowd favorites were played back to back. The first was “Whose God Is This?”, a song that sets a scene at the only bar in heaven where all the gods large and small go to unwind. But there is this one asshole, one red hatted asshole, who ruins the night for everyone before he decides to leave to return to the place where people still worship him, the USA. That song was followed by another that I have decided should be the country’s new national anthem, “The Epstein Files.” The crowd went wild.

After the show, I had a chance to meet the Mayor of Ottawa and speak with him about his lovely, progressive town. I also chatted with David, who books the talent at the church, which is a non-profit art collective. And eventually, once the crowd petered out in to the night, I had a chance to chat with Will for a bit. We chatted about Sing Us Home, how Dinosaur World has recently repainted their dinosaurs slightly more realistic colors, and his upcoming event next month in Nashville, the inaugural Eastside Ramble. And then he was off, planning to drive all night until he returned home to Tennessee so he could attend his son’s basketball game in the morning. On my drive back to the city, I replayed the songs in my head, thinking about how Ottawa wasn’t all that far away from Chicago and how Nashville in July for a two day festival may be exactly what I need this summer… with a quick stop at Dinosaur World in Cave City, KY of course.

I’d be remiss to not mention how dramatic and cool the colored lighting in the church made my shots, especially the yellow and blue which seemed to wash the sanctuary walls in white light and left Will looking grey, almost as if he was a cowboy from an old black and white movie dropped into modern times. Check out my photos of the night below and make sure to check out The Abbey in Ottawa, IL. It’s one of the most unique venues I’ve ever been to!