The long time Red Dirt troubadours Mike McClure, Jason Boland and Cody Canada performed a Yellow House Revisited show at the historic Tower Theater on Friday December 13th to a large and enthusiastic crowd.

If you don’t know the history of the infamous Stillwater Yellow House, you can learn more about it by going to my “What is Red Dirt Music Anyway?” Part two article here to learn more about the history.

Boland and a group of high school buddies from Harrah began renting the Yellow House, located on University Circle near the college campus, in 1996. Boland and his friends actually held a poker game to determine who got what room, which he won and got the largest room on the second floor. It was that summer that Boland first decided to play music, playing by himself for a couple years and then forming the band with the Stragglers in 1998. During that entire time, the Yellow house thrived as another hub of Red Dirt activity, second to The Farm. The residents constantly changed, and the open-door atmosphere allowed many people the ability to hang out and crash on couches.

Canada talked about his experience of making his way to the Yellow House.

 “Jason lived in this Yellow House with all of his high school buddies and then I just started basically crashing. I was living with a girl not too far from the Yellow House, and me and Jason’s friendship really split that relationship up, which was a blessing. Then I moved in, I moved into the basement. There were about 9 dirty mattresses in there, so we went in there and pulled all that out and had a burn party in the backyard. Then after I moved in, Stoney moved in, and then Ted our merch guy, and Red who was Boland’s TM for a while. Basically we ran all the students out and musicians took over, and I lived there for 4 years, something like that.”

“But it was a good time. Jason and I learned to write together. Mike would come over on occasion, he was really busy then. The Great Divide had just signed a record deal, so they were never home, and when he did come home it was the whole prodigal son returns thing. Everybody surrounded him, and it was the same way with Lafave too, he would come home, and there wasn’t a musician in town that didn’t come out, go down to The Farm and see him and hang out,” Said Canada.

These 3 guys have been playing music individually and collectively together for the last 25 years, and they are still going strong. Getting the chance to see them all 3 on stage at one time is truly a treat and a pleasure. Just the camaraderie between them as they all play together, improvising and throwing in interesting guitar parts as they smile and laugh about it, is something to behold.

The show was opened up by Scott Evans and Dylan Stewart, who both shined as well. Evans of course came from the same period as the headlining three, and came up on The Farm with his band Medicine show, and spent plenty of time at The Yellow House as well. Evans has such a soulful vibe, deep and expressive. He announced that he has a new upcoming album, which is exciting news. Stewart, while not as seasoned as the other 4, has his own spin and flavor as well. His songs have a hauntingly melancholy feel to them, which pulls people in. The two swapped songs and entertained the crowd and did a damn fine job.

In the front row of the show were a couple of Red Dirt’s biggest and most enthusiastic fans, Patty and Steve Baker. The married couple always make large signs which they display on their truck, and bring a level of support and love that rarely can be matched.

They also wore matching Soul Agent shirts, which prompted Evans to dedicate the song to the couple during his set. The Bakers’ always offer up food, shelter, friendship and loyalty to their Red Dirt friends, and they have earned the respect and love of the musicians and the fans alike. McClure also sent his love out to the Bakers as he sang a song, which he credited to writing at the Bakers’ home.

I’m sure the homecoming show was as fun for the guys as it was for the crowd. They pulled deep into their catalog of songs and played a lot of the old favorites that the crowd gladly sang along to, as well as some of their newer songs. Canada was feeling especially festive for the holidays, donning his ‘Santa’s Little Stoner’ Uncle Bekah’s Inappropriate Trucker Hat. During the course of the night he sang BC Clarks’ Anniversary Sale song, Robert Earl Keen’s Merry Christmas from the Family and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, which brought the holiday cheer into the mix.

McClure told the Oklahoma Gazette that playing onstage with Canada and Boland allows him to return to The Yellow House in a more figurative way.

“The idea of the shows is just a way for us to get back together again and rehash some of those years because those are very formative years for all of us,” McClure said. “That’s just a place where we all cut our teeth songwriting and playing for people. … It’s a nice snapshot in time. It’s one of those things that can’t really be recreated, when everybody came together, in a sense. … Playing these shows and going back over the old songs and talking about stories from that time period, that’s about as close as we can get to going back.”

In retrospect, McClure told the Oklahoma Gazette that, he realizes how special those days really were.

“There was always, in the past, reaching for something we were already in the middle of,” McClure said. “Instead of enjoying it more, it was always trying to reach to that next rung, which if we’d have been paying attention, we’d have realized we were already in it a lot earlier than we thought we were.”

All 3 of these talented crooners joked, laughed, told stories and entertained their hometown crew. The songs flowed and the love could be felt in the air. If you missed it, you missed it.