Sturgill Simpson was a rising star of Americana when he abruptly stopped touring in 2021. He returned three years later under a new moniker: Johnny Blue Skies. The name was ambiguous, but the music was decidedly not. Over the course of two albums, 2024\u2019s Passage du Desir and last March\u2019s Mutiny After Midnight\u2014and the tours that have followed\u2014the Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds band, featuring Estonian guitar virtuoso Laur Joamets, bassist Kevin Black, keyboardist\/saxophonist Robbie Crowell, and drummer Miles Miller, have evolved into a formidable, hard-hitting quintet capable of some of the finest extemporaneous playing on the planet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That fact was underlined by their superb, three-hour show last Friday, October 16th at the massive Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn, NY. The Dark Clouds came out promptly at 8:00 p.m., lit into \u201cLong White Line\u201d with nary a word, and barely paused for air over the next three hours, each song segueing into the next via extended jams that never seemed to lack real substance.\u00a0Interestingly, the studio version of their setlist clocks in at 2 hours and 15 minutes<\/a>, or 45 minutes less than they played at Barclays Center.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just play as long as the curfew allows,\u201d shrugged guitarist Joamets, who spent the night leaning on a stool, his left leg in a walking boot thanks to a hairline fracture of the fibula.\u00a0<\/p>\n The band\u2019s relentless, even tireless set was thorough and career-spanning, including \u201cSitting Here Without You\u201d from Simpson\u2019s 2013 debut High Top Mountain and seven songs from JBS\u2019s\u00a0Mutiny. The sound was remarkably crisp and well-separated, like listening to an excellent, very loud stereo, giving each instrument room to breathe and stand out. Kudos to front-of-house engineer Chris Mitchell.\u00a0<\/p>\n One could easily hear the distinction between Joamets and Simpson\u2019s guitars. The latter mostly leaned on a red Gibson 335, knocking out hard-driving rhythms that pounded like country picker Roy Clark backing soul king Al Green. The two guitarists played off each other in dynamic fashion, sometimes in unison, and at other times in a kind of push-and-pull or call-and-response exchange.\u00a0<\/p>\n Johnny Blue Skies: \u201cSitting Here Without You\u201d | 10\/16\/26<\/p>\n Video: Sean Goes To Concerts<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe just listen really well to each other,\u201d said Joamets. \u201cSturgill is a great guitarist, both live and in the studio.\u00a0There was a track on the last album where I had layered so many guitars that I really thought there was nothing left to add. Somehow, Stu came up with an additional part that was really percussive, and completely necessary to complete the song. I was wowed by his ability to hear that something was missing, and then just lay it down like that. That\u2019s just how we work. We try to finish and complete what the other guy is playing.\u201d<\/p>\n An hour into the show, Simpson switched to a Gibson Les Paul for a few songs without so much as a break in the groove, and his playing pivoted to a heavier rock sound, less funk-driven. \u201cHe\u2019s more aggressive and plays bigger chords on that Les Paul, which is tuned to some sort of mountain-music open-G that I think Stu made up himself,\u201d Joamets offered. \u201cIt serves a similar purpose to Keith Richards\u2019 open-G tuning, but it\u2019s totally original to Sturgill.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnny Blue Skies | \u201cThe Fastest Horse In Town\u201d | Barclays Center | Brooklyn, NY | 10\/16\/26<\/p>\n Video: The Me Boudin<\/a><\/p>\n Joamets said that the jamming transitions, which create a musical suite out of disparate songs, developed during the Passage du Desir tour. \u201cWe never really had a conversation about it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt just started happening.\u201d The band is aided by in-ear monitors and the fact that both Simpson and Miller wear microphones that can connect directly to the other band members, helping them guide each other through thick improv sections.<\/p>\n The setlists, which change every night, are usually written by Simpson or Miller. Each band member gets a copy of the setlist about an hour before the show, then all hands meet up backstage for a pre-show warmup. \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely necessary to rehearse those transitions,\u201d said Joamets, \u201cespecially for the rhythm section. I honestly don\u2019t know how Miles and Kevin do it, because they\u2019re responsible for steering the ship. I can always just sit out for a second, and get the lay of the land, but they don\u2019t have that luxury.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMiles is probably the most musical drummer that I know of. He\u2019s a great songwriter and singer and plays most of the instruments on his solo albums [Mr. Runaway, 2025 and Solid Gold, 2023]. He\u2019s a very intentional player; there\u2019s always a good reason for everything he plays. I like to say he plays music, not drums.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the transitions have even developed into full songs. In Brooklyn, in between \u201cBrace For Impact\u201d and \u201cWelcome to Earth\u201d\u2014two songs from 2016\u2019s A Sailor\u2019s Guide to Earth\u2014they interjected a quick take on Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019s \u201cRamble Tamble,\u201d which Joamets said they virtually stumbled into during a soundcheck rehearsal jam. \u201cThat jam was developing into something familiar, and Stu just asked,\u00a0\u2018What are we doing with this?\u2019\u201d Joamets recalled. \u201cSomeone shouted \u2018Ramble Tamble\u2019 and, bam, we were playing it. C\u2019mon\u2014who doesn\u2019t love CCR?\u201d<\/p>\n The setlist in Brooklyn galloped from outlaw country to funky dance grooves; deep blues with echoes of Gov\u2019t Mule to airy psychedelic rock reminiscent of Pink Floyd; and even some surprisingly convincing heavy metal. That\u2019s an eclectic mix, to be sure, but somehow the entire show felt unified, not disjointed. \u201cThe thing about setlists,\u201d Joamets opined, \u201cis that they reveal themselves on stage, and it\u2019s totally subjective how good or bad they are. I enjoy the fact that they\u2019re different every night. As my friend Audley Freed [currently playing with Sheryl Crow] likes to say, you really can\u2019t be objective about what\u2019s happening on stage because you\u2019re so in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n But, he adds, Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds are currently in such a strong, consistent groove together that the bar for improvised quality is set very high. When a band is hitting the note together like that, there are no bad nights; they start with good and get better from there.\u00a0\u201cIf you play that long together, you establish a kind of telepathy,\u201d suggested Joamets, whose debut solo album, Foreign Feathers, is set for release in late November. \u201cThe band gets so tight and connected that those great moments can simply happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnny Blue Skies: \u201cViridescent\u201d>\u201dSitting Here Without You\u201d | 10\/16\/26<\/p>\n Video: Radarosen<\/a><\/p>\n