Tyler Childers & Blackfeet Tribe Shine on a Cloudy Day in Montana
Tyler Childers arrived in Whitefish, Montana on Sunday, August 4th for the Blackfeet Nation Benefit as a country music artist from Kentucky. He left a hero.
When Childers first announced he would play a benefit for the Blackfeet Indian Reservation back in June, there wasn’t much accompanying information about why he’d chosen such a venture. Childers already does more charity work than most throughout the Appalachia region, including through his Hickman Holler Relief Fund and his annual event, Healing Appalachia.
So why go halfway across the continent to tackle yet another problem, which is the difficulty facing many American Indian reservations out West? It turns out Tyler attended a taxidermy and tanning course in Montana previously, and met a member of the Blackfeet Tribe. They became close, and soon Tyler decided he wanted to do something to help the tribe out. Childers then partnered with Outriders Presents who promotes the massive Under The Big Sky Festival on the Big Mountain Ranch each July, and the plan for the benefit was hatched.
To read more about how and why the benefit came about, CLICK HERE.
Childers taking the stage wasn’t the start of an amazing day of fellowship across cultures and geography, it was just the culmination of it. Blackfeet drummers and dancers blessed the event in the mid afternoon after rain had beset Whitefish all day. As soon as the drum circle ceased, so did most of the rain, making for a mild an overcast evening that was perfect for music and entertainment.
When Childers did take the stage, it started with the screens and the console television he keeps behind him (that dubs as a guitar amplifier) flashing video snippets between static before landing on the word “fellowship.” That word would become the theme for the evening.
There may have been nobody better to open up for Tyler Childers at the benefit than Vincent Neil Emerson. Not only is he a great songwriter and his music is worthy of more ears, he happens to be of Native American heritage himself.
Also, as part of the benefit, Outriders Presents and the Big Mountain Ranch built a full scale Native American bareback relay race horse track on the property, and held a relay race competition with $75,000 total given out in paying the participants and prize money. The video for Emerson’s recent song “Little Wolf’s Invincible Yellow Medicine Paint” featured a relay racing champion, Sharmaine Weed.
Tyler Childers has always come across as a little awkward and uncomfortable in a spotlight at center stage, and playing the country music superstar. His music might have graduated to the arena level over the last year, but deep down, he still seems like the awkward red-headed boy from the holler, just trying to make sense of life like the rest of us.
But having spent the entire day with the people of the Blackfeet Tribe and feeling the love they all gave him, it put Childers at ease like you rarely or ever see. Childers was more animated than normal when he took the stage. He’s not known much for his stage banter, but he was outright talkative in Whitefish.
As for the music, it was vintage Childers, but perhaps even more energetic. Former member of The Wooks CJ Cain is now not just holding down acoustic rhythm duties for the band, he’s also taking numerous solos. Instead of one keyboard player, Tyler is now featuring two to go along with an enhanced video presentation on the big screens that you commonly see from an arena level act. Even the infectious head bobbing of bass player Craig Burletic seemed especially boisterous for this event.
Childers still might be seaching for that perfect show ending song after years of relying on the Charlie Daniels track “Trudy,” especially since he never does an encore. “Heart You’ve Been Tendin’,” which he ended with in Montana works fine. But his spaced-out version of the old fiddle tune “Click Ol’ Hen” might be a good candidate too.
“This has been an absolutely blast for me,” Childers said near the end, but of course all performers compliment the local crowd no matter where they are to make them feel special. But on this day and at this event, you believed him.
Setlist:
1. Whitehouse Road
2. Old Country Church
3. Can I Take My Hounds to Heave?
4. Country Squire
5. I Swear to God
6. Tattoos
7. Rustin’ in the Rain
8. All Your’n
9. Purgatory
10. Click Ol’ Hen (Extended)
11. Lady May (Acoustic)
12. Nose to the Grindstone (Acoustic)
13. Follow You to Virgie (Acoustic)
14. Percheon Mules
15. ???
16. Honky Tonk Flame
17. Triune God
18. Tulsa Turnaround
19. Housefire
20. Universal Sound
21. Heart You’ve Been Tendin’
All photos by Kyle “Trigger” Coroneos. For more photos and media, follow Saving Country Music on Instagram.
August 5, 2024 @ 6:34 pm
Your coverage of this is much appreciated and worthy of an award. It’s beautiful when great music, a worthy cause, and incredible journalism come together. I’m getting a paper route in case they run it back next year.
August 5, 2024 @ 6:53 pm
How fortunate are we that one of the most talented musicians playing today is also one of the kindest and most generous? What a badass. See you in a few weeks in Missoula, Tyler.
August 5, 2024 @ 8:10 pm
Is nice you put this to the light. I find interesting the issues between the two sides of the park or areas up there. One side making money off the tourism while giving up.what made the area great to begin with. The other side hanging onto that but missing out on the money. It can be done. Its kind of like how the smokies are one side you have pigeon forge, gatlinburgh, other side is townsend as well as a few other areas. Townsend tries to remain more peaceful and laid back though a little more civilization impedes every day.money is a good thing but it does bring its own evil.
August 5, 2024 @ 10:54 pm
If he’s smart and wants to raise more money and awareness, he would turn this concert into a live album/DVD package.
Just as idea.
August 5, 2024 @ 10:57 pm
Trigger,
Since you mentioned encores. Your thoughts on the ideal song? Is it upbeat? A fast one to leave with energy? Reflective? Turnpike finished recently with “Pay No Rent” and it didn’t land, IMO.
August 6, 2024 @ 8:01 am
It’s not easy to find the perfect encore song. You want to try and leave folks with their mind’s blown so that’s the last impression they have, but sometimes folks come out with an understated song that creates an emotional moment. I agree that “Pay No Rent” by Turnpike doesn’t make for a good one either, though seeing them this year, they’ve been really experimenting with the playlist to see what’s resonating, which I encourage, especially when you’re them and you’ve been touring so much lately.
August 6, 2024 @ 8:51 am
I just saw them in Delaware and “Kansas City Southern” works great as an opener.
August 6, 2024 @ 6:00 am
Actually, I would consider Tyler an artist that does quite a bit of banter.
I’ve seen him many times through the years and recently. He always has a story. Quite funny actually.
August 6, 2024 @ 8:43 am
Glad you document these events.
I’m curious about two keys players. I haven’t seen Childers in about 7 years, so I can’t really place what they’d do in the set. I could see one doing organ work throughout… what roles did they play?
August 6, 2024 @ 11:44 am
They’re mostly just there to add some body to the sound, though the new keys player did take a ripping solo during “Cluck Ol’ Hen” that was pretty epic.
August 6, 2024 @ 2:48 pm
That’s Kory Caudill, great keyboard player from Kentucky.
August 6, 2024 @ 9:31 pm
Thanks!
August 6, 2024 @ 9:43 am
So.. did he play Feathered Indians?
August 6, 2024 @ 11:43 am
No, he did not. But if anything, the audience that included a lot of Native Americans was probably disappointed. In my experience, most Native Americans don’t get offended by such things at nearly as high of a rate as their White savior counterparts on social media.
However, during the relay races, as part of their hype music that was all “country” songs remixed into EDM tracks, they played Tim McGraw’s “Indian Outlaw,” which I find offensive personally. I didn’t want to sully the positive vibes of the event by talking about this in the review. But whoever was the DJ, they needed to read the room and the crowd. It was all Morgan Wallen, Shaboozey, and drum track remixes of modern radio country songs.
August 7, 2024 @ 6:59 pm
Just saw Tyler Childers in Calgary last night. Great show, but he didn’t play Feathered Indian’s last night too. Was a bit disappointed as that’s mine and my wife’s favourite song of his… and probably his most popular? Was a really great show though and happy he finally made it to Canada!
August 8, 2024 @ 9:47 am
He pretty much has retired feathered Indians from his set list. It hardly gets played anymore these days
August 6, 2024 @ 2:47 pm
That’s Kory Caudill, great keyboard player from Kentucky.
August 6, 2024 @ 11:48 am
I always kind of liked his and sturgills attitude towards encores, kind of silly to walk off stage just to walk back on to play the song or two you knew they were planning to play anyway. Forget the theatrics and just play the set.
Did you not catch song 15 or was it something new?
Thanks for covering the event!
August 6, 2024 @ 12:18 pm
I agree that the encore is dumb. Save that for the mainstream performers and fans. But I also understand it.
Song 15 may have not even been a song, and might have been more of an interlude, I really don’t know. Ahead of Tyler’s shows recently, he’s been playing a version of Krishna music. He did this when I saw him in March as well, and in March was wearing a Hindu-style scarf. I want to say that I heard “Krishna” uttered in the music of song 15, but it really was hard to follow what exactly what was going on.
I don’t know if we should expect Childers to go in some sort of Krishna direction on any new album. But he’s definitely injecting this into his live presentation. There was also Krishna imagery in the background when singing “Old Country Church.”
August 6, 2024 @ 3:43 pm
Encores just seem like a cheap pop to get the crowd to chant for you or something. I love Cody jinks and seen him multiple times but everyone knows he’s playing loud and heavy, seems silly to make a “show” out of it.
Honestly never heard of krishna music before, had to look it up.
August 7, 2024 @ 4:58 am
Speaking of encores….Motorhead was not a big fan either. I saw them about 18 yrs ago and they finished their set and Lemmy says ‘here’s the part where we walk off stage and you make noise and we come back to play more. fuck that!’ And they launched into a few more songs liek the badasses they were.
August 6, 2024 @ 12:48 pm
There’s a tradition in another country that the audience gets to call the performer back for a second performance of the audience’s favorite song from that night.