I first saw Todd Snider in 1998 and believed he was on his way to being a full-fledged rock star. He jumped into the audience and finished his encore standing on my table. I always imagined that night being what it was like to see Springsteen in a club in 1972. At the end of that tour, he and his band, The Nervous Wrecks, went their separate ways. Snider moved on as a solo acoustic act and created his own brand of hippie folk. I have always hoped that he would go back to playing with a band. He is so good at it. That being said, he has been refining his acoustic craft for close to 15 years. After seeing him multiple times as a solo act, this might have been the night where I realized that this is what he was meant to be. He had it all together and played one of the best solo shows I have seen in a long time.

Snider is part singer, part comedian, and a big-time storyteller. His welcoming tone and openness endear him to the crowd as much as his music. He opened the show with his always fun sing-along, “Beer Run.” It led into a series of favorites like “Keep off the Grass,” which featured one of his first great stories. Snider told an amusing tale about how every songwriter steals from Bob Dylan. He described first playing the song for a friend who told him it sounded exactly like a Dylan song and he could not just copy it. He humorously described his realization that it was indeed okay to steal from Dylan when he figured out everyone songwriter was doing it. A heartfelt “Rose City” followed with Snider describing some awkward memories on a trip to his hometown of Beaverton, Oregon.

At that point, he thanked the crowd and threw the night open to requests. Screams came from all over the room. The full house made it hard to hear one title from another. “Vinyl Records” and “Play a Train Song” both sounded wonderful in this part of the show. My personal favorites included “Horseshoe Lake” and “Doublewide Blues.”

He closed the request section by filling the request of mayor Rahm Emanuel, who had introduced Snider at the start of the show. The mayor might have got a few boos when he came in, but he did get his song played. The mayor had requested the oldie "Runaround Sue," which is a common Snider cover tune. The whole room was singing along. As it did, I thought about first seeing Snider years ago and realizing that the guy I saw then is doing it better than ever.

The setlist:

Beer Run/Age Like Wine/Beer Run
Just Like Old Times
Tension
Precious Little Miracles
Stuck On The Corner
Keep Off The Grass
Rose City
Horseshoe Lake
Vinyl Records
Play a Train Song
Doublewide Blues
Alright Guy
Runaround Sue
Ballad of The Kingsmen
America's Favorite Pastime
Conservative Christian, Right Wing Republican, Straight White American Males
Enjoy Yourself
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Don't Be Cruel (one verse, sung by tour manager, Dave "Elvis" Hixx)
Stoney
Better Than Ever Blues Part Two

The opening act was "Outlaw Country" host, singer-songwriter Elizabeth Cook. She was backed on guitar by husband and talented songwriter Tim Carroll. If you have heard her on satellite radio, you know that Cook has southern charm and a love of music and stories. She shined on her Americana hit, “El Camino,” from her 2010 record, Welder. Cook sounded great on sexy and fun tunes like “Yes To Booty” and “Sometimes It Takes Balls To Be A Woman.” Cook is a perfect complement to Snider. Her tales and tunes made a great night better.

The Rest of the Story

I want to thank my friend, Ben Richards, a DJ from WRLR radio in Round Lake. Not only did he take some great pictures at the show, he also worked out for me to go backstage and visit with Snider afterward. Snider was in a great mood and very talkative. Here are a few nuggets of our conversation:

- He is a big fan of both Widespread Panic and Yonder Mountain String Band.

- This was not the first time he had met Rahm Emmanuel. The mayor showed up, with plenty of Secret Service, at a show in Washington D.C. during his Chief of Staff days.

- He puts a great amount of thought into his setlist creation each night. Laid out on the table in front of him were the setlists for his last four or five Chicago dates.

- I asked Snider about that first show I saw back in 1998. He remembered some details of that night including a big fight the band witnessed in the parking lot on its way out of the show.