Steve Earle tells life story, in music and words, at Outpost in the Burbs (REVIEW, SETLIST, PHOTOS, VIDEOS)

MICHAEL STAHL, portraitsbymichaelstahl.com

Steve Earle performs at Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair, Nov. 8.

“There are those that break and bend/I’m the other kind,” sang Steve Earle in his 1990 song, “The Other Kind.” Indeed, resilience was a major theme of the “Fifty Years of Songs and Stories (Solo & Acoustic)” show that Earle presented at The Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair, Nov. 8.

Make no mistake about it: The guy has been through a lot.

He has described this show, which he has been performing for much of this year, as “a more or less chronological live songbook,” meaning it is a kind of career overview. And it is. In Montclair, he started with two of his earliest songs, “Tom Ames’ Prayer” and “Ben McCulloch,” and one of his encores was “I’m Not Missing Anything But You,” a bittersweet, as-yet unrecorded ballad that he performed as a duet with its co-writer, Zandi Holup (who also opened). Throughout his 2-hour-plus set, he performed songs, for the most part, in the order in which they were written; between them, he talked about what was going on in his life when they were created, and offered random musings about all kinds of other things.

Highlights included his life-on-the-road anthem “Guitar Town”; a slowed-down take on “Someday,” his evocative look at small-town life; the timely “City of Immigrants” (with a sing-along on lines like “All of us are immigrants/Every daughter, every son”); and the rollicking “Galway Girl.”

His stories, meanwhile, covered his travails as a bullied high school student; as an aspiring singer-songwriter who didn’t even release an album until a dozen years into his career; as a recording artist whose labels didn’t always believe in him; and as a drug addict.

“That record did pretty good,” he said of his third album, 1988’s Copperhead Road. “Me personally, not so much.” Drugs had always been part of his life. But when he started making more money, there was more temptation.

“It’s a miracle I ever got out of Kings Cross,” he said about a 1990 tour of Australia and New Zealand that he undertook while struggling with addiction. This was followed by more touring, in Europe and North America. “I didn’t miss a single show,” he said. “But after it was over with, I dropped off the face of the earth.”

MICHAEL STAHL, portraitsbymichaelstahl.com

Steve Earle at Outpost in the Burbs.

Several interventions failed. “I just kept going, and ripping and running, until I got busted,” he said. “I never caught a drug charge in my life. But I finally did.”

He got an 11-month sentence, for drug possession. “That sounds harsh, except when you consider I didn’t show up for my sentencing hearing,” he said. “Judges don’t like that.” This led, though, to him eventually kicking the habit; he has now been clean and sober for 31 years, he said.

He got a big cheer when he mentioned this, of course, and the show was notably lighter in tone for the rest of the evening — even if there were still some dark moments to come. Earle said that as a reminder to himself, he needed to follow “South Nashville Blues,” a song that has drug references but also a somewhat jaunty feel, with the harrowing “CCKMP.” (The initials stand for Cocaine Cannot Kill My Pain.)

Echoing his story of falling and then rising … his gravelly, growling vocal delivery made for some moments early in the evening when the lyrics were a bit hard to decipher, but his voice got stronger and clearer as the evening went on.

As a raconteur, he always seemed like he was just giving a casual talk, even though he has been touring with this show for a while, and it is probably largely the same from venue to venue. Everything seemed very heartfelt, though there were also some funny lines here and there. After mentioning that he did research for “Ben McCulloch” — about an actual person, a Civil War general — in a library, for instance, he cracked: “Do you remember the library? It’s sort of like the Internet except it’s a lot slower and most of it’s true.”

And before performing “No. 29” — which the non-athletic Earle wrote about a high school friend of his who was a football player — he talked about what he learned about the craft of songwriting as he struggled to find his voice. “I learned that nobody really gives a fuck about what happens to me as much as they do (about) what happens to me that may have happened to them in some form, too,” he said. “The job’s largely about empathy. And I also learned that when you’re trying to write a song with a story with a beginning and a middle and an end, sometimes it’s necessary to create a character that’s completely different than yourself.”

I’ve seen other artists do similar career-spanning, autobiographical shows — including, of course, one of Earle’s main influences, Bruce Springsteen, in his “Springsteen on Broadway” run. I’ve never seen it done better, or with more gripping honesty. I’d love to see other artists of a certain age use “Fifty Years of Songs and Stories (Solo & Acoustic)” as a kind of model — even though few, of course, have a catalog as deep and rich as Earle does. Or a life story as intense.

MICHAEL STAHL, portraitsbymichaelstahl.com

Steve Earle at Outpost in the Burbs.

Here is the show’s setlist and, below it, some videos filmed by Cindy Stagoff:

“Tom Ames’ Prayer”
“Ben McCulloch”
“The Devil’s Right Hand”
“Guitar Town”
“My Old Friend the Blues”
“Someday”
“I Ain’t Ever Satisfied”
“No. 29”
“Copperhead Road”
“Billy Austin”
“Goodbye”
“South Nashville Blues”
“CCKMP”
“Transcendental Blues”
“The Mountain”
“City of Immigrants”

Encore:
“I’m Not Missing Anything But You” (with Zandi Holup)
“The Galway Girl”

Earle will be among the performers at the Allman Betts Family Revival show at The Beacon Theatre in Manhattan, Dec. 6 at 8 p.m.; visit ticketmaster.com. And his 11th annual John Henry’s Friends Benefit will take place at The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, Dec. 12 at 8 p.m., with Brandi Carlile, Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams, and Margaret Glaspy also performing; proceeds will go to The Keswell School for children and young adults with autism, in Manhattan.

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