Fred Eaglesmith was playing real, authentic country music/ comedy for a sold out crowd at the Slice, April 21.
He was in a pretty good mood, though he noted he was coming from an awful gig in Montana.
Eaglesmith, clad this time in a top hat and aviator ’s goggles, commands respect and 
attention from his audiences. Luckily most of them sat in rapt attention though he still told off a couple people for talking during his stories.
I arrived few songs into the show. I missed “Johnny Cash” from the new CD, “6 Volts” which apparently he opened with, but arrived in time to catch my favourite new song “Katie.”
But most of the show was vintage Fred Eaglesmith. He noted country star Allan Jackson recorded his song “Freight Train,” and joked Jackson ended up naming his album and tour “Freight Train.” He said he was invited to go down to Nashville, all expenses paid including a limo and would get a chance to meet country stars on the Grand Ole Opry, but had to turn it down because he had to play a sold out show in a tiny Wisconsin town.
He followed that by noting Miranda Lambert recorded another one of his songs “Time To Get A Gun,” which lead to a story about how he started getting calls from reporters asking how he wrote the song, adding he answered them by reciting the lyrics “I had a neighbour who got his car stolen right from his driveway, so it was a time to get a gun, but couldn’t afford one unless he stopped drinking.”
His band included long time drummer Kori Heppner and her brother-in-law Roger Marin on pedal steel guitar returning for this tour. He was in Eaglesmith‘s band for nine years early in the late ’90s. The band featured Justine Fischer on stand -up bass and Matty Simpson on guitar and banjo plus Mike Zinger on mandolin. 
Opening act Tif Ginn was also on stage adding a little extra accordion.
Eaglesmith joked with the more mature members of the audience quipping “You have to have gone though at least one death and a couple of divorces to really get a Fred Eaglesmith show,” which is a pretty accurate summary of one of his joke and story filled performances with songs about the down and out and downtrodden.
He joked about being an artist as well as president of his own record label “A Major Label,” and talked of the dispute between the “president” and “artist” about playing more music from the new CD, and then went ahead and played several old Eaglesmith standards including “Water in the Fuel” before launching into a story about hitchhiking out west in 1974, laughing “ And none of you would pick me up.”
Everyone got it though and he even had a couple dancers on a couple more upbeat songs like “105,” who he thanked for dancing.
He wound things down after saying “ I won’t keep you here for long,” with “Stars,” from the new CD then was called back for an encore which he performed on his own. “Crazier,” was one of the highlights of it.
While bigger songs like “49 Tonnes” and my favourite “Indiana Road” were conspiculously absent from the set, he has enough great songs to entertain regardless.
