Back from hiatus, Turnpike Troubadours make a memorable Milwaukee debut at Fiserv Forum

Standing on stage in Milwaukee Friday, Turnpike Troubadours frontman Evan Felker speculated that the band had only played the city one other time.

Correct me if I'm wrong, superfans, but I believe Felker is mistaken. The band played outside of Milwaukee in Sturtevant in 2014 at the Route 20 Outhouse, and in Madison that same year. But in terms of a show in Wisconsin's biggest city, Friday's appearance — at Fiserv Forum, no less — appears to be the first.

Few hard-touring country acts have repeatedly skipped over this major country market — but Turnpike Troubadours isn't like most hard-touring country bands.

Steering clear of the typical Nashville promo game, the Oklahoma group released its debut album in 2007, amassing a cult following with a Music Row-defying Red Dirt sound, the tour stops growing from bar gigs to bigger venues.

But at the peak of the band's popularity in 2019, Felker's life was falling apart. As he confessed to Rolling Stone this year, things were so bad he became completely disenchanted with making music. A Milwaukee show came very close to never happening.

But Felker sobered up, reignited his creative spark, and Troubadours released a comeback album, "A Cat in the Rain," this spring.

And in their absence, a funny thing happened.

Their mainstream country-adjacent ways started to become more mainstream, at least in terms of ticket sales. Likeminded artists like Tyler Childers and fellow Okie Zach Bryan have massive Milwaukee shows coming up in 2024 — Bryan's comes just one year after a sold-out Summerfest amphitheater set. Next year, Bryan and Troubadours will be playing some stadium gigs together.

Turnpike Troubadours didn't fill lower bowl of Fiserv Forum

Troubadours still aren't on Bryan's level in terms of popularity. Friday's Fiserv Forum concert was lower-bowl only from the start, and even then there were many empty seats scattered about — a consequence, perhaps, of the band overlooking the market on their come-up.

But when Felker opened the night with "Every Girl," from 2010 album "Diamonds & Gasoline" — the most represented album from Friday's setlist — the crowd singalong was so impassioned that it felt like twice as many people were watching the band in the Bucks arena.

Across an hour and 45 minutes, Kyle Nix's tangy fiddle, Hank Early's versatility on banjo, steel guitar and accordion, and Ryan Engleman's rough-and-tumble electric guitar, they all gave Friday's 23 songs their flavor, inspired honky-tonk dancing across the arena floor.

But this was still a no-fuss presentation, void of much showboating, with a basic stage presentation to match. It was Felker, a humble stage presence, that was the star of the show — or more accurately, Felker's words were the star of the show.

The vividness of his lyrics is the main draw for Troubadours fans — the way, for instance, he paints a picture on "Diamonds & Gasoline" favorite "Shreveport," singing Friday about ceiling fans humming above a screened-in patio, of crawfish "hotter than a chimney fire," of a bar maid's smile "that knocked me off my stool."

And after his struggles and hiatus, Felker's gift is still intact. The crowd seemed more restless Friday for newer songs, but anyone paying attention picked up on some gems.

"If pressure still makes a diamond babe, I might still come out clean," he sang with subtle profundity Friday during the title track from "A Cat in the Rain." On "Chipping Mill," Felker's poetic directness came through as he ruminated on a relationship that can never be: "We are star dust brought to life/None of us are meant to stay/One thing about it/I'll meet you at the gate."

"I always kept the best for you."

The five musicians surrounding Felker never stepped on his words, but for the "Diamonds & Gasoline" title track, everyone excused themselves (except for Early on dobro), the confliction of Felker's narrator at a crossroads given even more room to breathe. It was followed by another partial-band acoustic number. Bassist and co-founder R.C. Edwards sang a sweet, unreleased song he wrote about his fiancée who he'll marry in a couple of weeks, "For the Sake," strumming guitar while Nix played fiddle, with Engleman joining on electric guitar toward the end.

The brightest moment of Turnpike Troubadours' concert in Milwaukee

But the brightest moment of the evening happened when Turnpike Troubadours put their feet on the gas for the Roy Orbison-channeling "The Mercury," the band appropriately rollicking as Felker sang "Well it's 1 a.m., and it's wild and loud, like sitting in the middle of a funnel cloud." The mild-mannered Felker tossed out a few yelps along the way, did some hard tugs at his guitar strings, the band intentionally becoming disjoined, the music falling apart, after Felker called out, "Girl, I know you're gonna wreck this town/Won't you tell me where to be when the walls start falling down?"

What a relief for the band and for fans, especially overlooked ones in Milwaukee, that the walls didn't fall down for Turnpike Troubadours. This may have been their first, long overdue show in town — but I doubt it'll be the last.

3 takeaways from Turnpike Troubadours' Milwaukee concert, including openers Ian Munsick and the Wild Feathers

• As the house lights went out and Turnpike Troubadours took the stage, "Blister in the Sun" from Milwaukee's own Violent Femmes was blasting through the speakers. A nice touch.

• At one point during his hourlong set, opener Ian Munsick talked about the only two contemporary country artists he admired in high school — Turnpike Troubadours and Cody Johnson. From there, with his long mane flowing from the breeze of a fan, Munsick kicked into his Johnson collaboration, “Long Live Cowgirls.” Munsick spoke a lot Friday night about “real country music,” praised the fiddle as a prerequisite for the genre, and waxed poetic about farm land and his native Wyoming. Songs like “I See Country” had some dirt on ‘em — but they critically had plenty of polish and pep, too. And if an idol like Johnson can become a big star channeling ‘90s country sensibilities in 2023, Friday’s set suggested Munsick is on his way to finding similar success.

• Nashville band The Wild Feathers, the night's other opening act, emerged at the tail end of the Americana revival, and has stuck it out to see it swing back into major favor. Time will tell if the show opportunities can get much bigger this time around, but the band’s determined to keep picking up fans with their spirited, harmony-heavy ‘70s country rock sound — and Friday it seemed they managed to do that again.

Turnpike Troubadours' Fiserv Forum setlist

1. "Every Girl"

2. "7 & 7"

3. "Before the Devil Knows We're Dead"

4. "Good Lord Lorrie"

5. "Gin, Smoke, Lies"

6. "The Winding Stair Mountain Blues"

7. "1968"

8. "A Cat in the Rain"

9. "Shreveport"

10. "Unrung"

11. "The Mercury"

12. "The Bird Hunters"

13. "Brought Me"

14. "Mean Old Sun"

15. "Chipping Mill"

16. "A Tornado Warning"

17. "Whole Damn Town"

18. "Kansas City Southern"

19. "Diamonds & Gasoline"

20. "For the Sake (When It Comes to Loving You)"

21. "Long Hot Summer Day"

22. "Something to Hold On To"

23. "Pay No Rent"

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on X at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Turnpike Troubadours make a memorable Milwaukee debut at Fiserv Forum