I saw Margo Price at Webster Hall (Patreon)

A walk from Penn Station took me through the Upper West Side. Initially I set out to find an old burger place, but upon seeing how crowded it was, I gave up my quest. The journey was worth it though — I accidentally found my way to the Hotel Chelsea, the lowercase-b bohemian capital of 20th Century New York art. To see rock ’n’ roll’s favorite spot in Manhattan was something else. I snuck into the lobby, looked around, snapped a couple photos, and left in less than a minute.

My next stop was pretty rock ’n’ roll as well — Webster Hall on East 11th in the East Village. In its 137 years (Webster Hall was erected three years after Grandma Stazi arrived in Manhattan — I had revisited Castle Garden earlier to retrace her footsteps), the theater has hosted labor unions, bootleggers, Emma Goldman, and the Ritz. It’s a concert venue these days, which of course brought me there.

I’ve written before about Margo Price being a favorite artist of mine. She makes some of the best country music of the nascent 21st century, channeling the best aspects of Willie Nelson and Lucinda Williams into rollicking yet grounded songwriting. I’d bought a ticket to her Webster Hall show some months before — in a year of disappointment and grueling horror, it was nice to have something to look forward to: the last show of Price’s tour. 

Full disclosure: I am terrible at scheduling, so I always arrive at places early. This applies doubly to concerts. Webster Hall opened its doors around 7pm. I got there at 4:45. I was the second person in line too: an old hippie ahead of me told me he’d spent too much of his money on concerts (“I’ll never be able to retire,” he said). 

A few minutes later, Margo Price walked out of the theater, right past us. I’ve never been prone to hero worship, but for the first time in my life, I was fucking well starstruck. Not that I did anything about it — she was having a conversation with her husband-slash-musical-partner Jeremy Ivy and some other people. Butting in like a paparazzi would have been extremely rude to them and traumatizing for me. So like any good reporter, I shut the fuck up and left them alone.

The hours-long wait for the doors to open was fun. I got to talk to a middle-aged dad of a trans boy (he was immensely proud of his son), and a Tanzanian-Australian fellow about Price and alternative rock for a good while. It was a small crowd — the sort you get at a nice progressive country rock concert. The ideal gathering for a show. 

The venue itself was delightful. Webster Hall has a nice barroom as well as its main theater. Its bathrooms proudly encourage visitors to use the lavatories that match their gender identities, even giving them a gender-neutral bathroom to use. Good spot. I felt comfortable there — a stark change from other Manhattan venues (when I went to a Churches concert at Terminal 5 in Hell’s Kitchen I got misgendered multiple times at the front door). 

The nice thing about a relatively small audience is getting closer to stage early on. I was in the second row throughout Margo Price’s show, which meant I saw everything and will someday hear nothing. That was about as close as I’ve ever been to the stage at a show where I didn’t perform. Nice change. Could do it again.

The opening act was Tré Burt, a lovely San Francisco singer-songwriter who I’d never heard of. He was profoundly charming in addition to having an excellent voice, regaling the audience with stories of San Francisco, such as the time he “spotted a wild Karen in the wild.” I spotted Margo Price peeking from backstage watching half his set before she joined him for a duet. She enjoyed Burt as much as anyone in the audience.

Price’s emergence onstage was, of course, absolutely magnificent. She has the stage presence of a true rock ’n’ roll star and the voice of an A-list 60s pop star. Her roster of songs covered the gambit of new stuff and her early hits like “Hurtin’ on the Bottle.” And her cover of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”, the peak of her already fabulous band, was as psychedelic as she’s ever been. At a couple points she seemed to notice me belting at the stage, and dug it immensely. Or maybe I was just loopy from live music (which is known to happen).

At the end Price appeared consternated by Webster Hall’s 11pm curfew (as were we all), which meant cutting her cover of Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up” from the set. After her closing medley, during which I caught a rose, I strolled through the dispersing crowd hollering “there goes the last of my fucking hearing.” Reader, I’d do it all again.