The proof of music that’s truly enduring can now be clearly measured in decades, so with the 20th anniversary of the Son Volt debut “Trace” comes a tour by Jay Farrar that began Wednesday at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va. that heralds the release the same week of a double disc reissue of the work that marked his first creative departure from Uncle Tupelo in 1995.
It helps that the sound, song craft and familiar mournful sound of Farrar was crystallized in “Trace,” and its songs a highlight of his shows ever since, both in the band that went through a five year hiatus and wholesale member change, and in solo tours.
With his black bangs, rumpled western shirt and sideburns, Farrar looked pretty much as he did 20 years ago as well — or maybe like a character in this season’s “Fargo.” Surrounded by two Son Volt members from different lineups — the talented multi instrumentalist Gary Hunt on guitar, fiddle and mandolin, and Eric Heywood on pedal steel, the old songs had a resonance and easy familiarity like old boots.
And while the show was programmed to begin by playing each one of the 11 songs on “Trace” to start the show, at least he shuffled the order of them to provide some surprise. It also meant he started with “Tear Stained Eye” instead of “Windfall,” the first tune of the album that became the last of the set of songs from “Trace.”
There was a nice logic to the songs as they unfolded, though; their detailed pictures of empty landscapes and long highways, combined with moaning regrets, with the occasional sting of relationship miasma captured in things like “Drown,” a song with its own prognostications when he sang it in ’95: “You’re with me now, will be again.”
While remaining as silent as he was in the first part of the show in his between-song patter, the latter half of the show demonstrated how much his reconstituted Son Volt on its last album “Honky Tonk” harkened back to the sounds of “Trace” with songs like “Seawall,” “Hearts and Minds,” and ”Bakersfield.”
Old things emerged, welcome, like “Back in Your World” from “Straightways,” “Methamphetamine”from “The Search,” “Driving the View” from “Wide Swing Tremelo,” and “Afterglow 61” from Okemah and the Melody of Riot.
He wasn’t limited by the instrumentation; that “The Picture” was missing horns and drums meant it showed itself to be more of a piece with the rest of the band’s output. They did present “Ten Second News” from “Trace” with double pedal steel guitars from Hunt and Heywood, a kind of guitar symphony in its way.
And though there were no drums all night, Farrar created a foot-pedal effect that approximated a bass drum beat on the first song of the encore, “Hearts and Minds” that was effective in a kind of one-man-band busking way.
Still, if there was not going to be a wide degree of variation in the musical presentation, there could at least be that in the songs — one of which could be a throwaway cover, or a smile, or a surprise. Instead, he stayed into his steady groove, which some may have considered a rut.
The attempt of change of pace may have been in the big cover to close the encore, Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” which perhaps addresses the kind of criticisms and brickbats he’s had to endure all these years for just being mournful Jay Farrar (“They’ll stone ya when you’re trying to be so good”). Perhaps to show defiance, he played it in a style that brought the marching band beat of the Dylan anthem into his perfected Son Volt malaise.
In an attempt to match demeanors on the road — or to show the headliner to be a cheery guy by comparison — was the intriguing opening act Holy Sons, a Portland, Ore., guy named Emil Amos whose outlook is so bleak he started with “Suicide is Painless,” the old “MASH” theme song that me made sound like a suicide song.
Amid his own songs, he chose some interesting covers too, from Neil Young’s “On the Beach” to Big Star, over whom he mused at length about their fate. It made for a fascinating little set in which he lost himself. And the fact that he was talking to the audience, unlike the headliner, made him instantly seem more personable or willing to communicate.