Myles Kennedy w/ Tim Montana, Sons of Silver at Liberty Hall, Lawrence KS (2025-02-11)

MYLES KENNEDY TOUR DATES

“Letting Go” was made to look so easy–

Maybe rock’s busiest singer/guitarist, Myles Kennedy is out on his “The Art of Letting Go Tour” named for his third and most recent solo album (released last Oct. via Napalm Records) and made a stop in downtown Lawrence for a weeknight show at Liberty Hall, all as a winter storm drew closer to the area,

Kennedy is also known as the singer in the Creed-offshoot band Alter Bridge as well as leading The Conspirators who have played and recorded with Slash over four albums, and he even rehearsed with Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, along with drummer Jason Bonham in 2008.

They jammed together to see if a new musical project could materialize following Zeppelin’s historic 2007 concert and then by singer Robert Plant’s adamant refusal to carry on, but nothing further came to be. Suffice it to say, Kennedy’s four-octave voice and almost four decades as a musician, gives him a reputation that speaks for itself.

This lineup is the same three acts as last fall’s run, when the tour made a stop last October in Kansas City at the Uptown Theater, as if it all works, don’t ‘fix what ain’t broken’. The night began with a short but potent set from rising LA rock band, Sons of Silver, in support of their new ten-track full length, “Runaway Emotions” (out last month on 4L Ent/Bungalo/Universal)

Following a debut EP in 2020 and subsequent EP and single releases, the music from the record sounds both familiar and fresh at the same time- straight-ahead rock, with a touch of blues and the rough fringe of post-punk. Getting legendary engineer Tim Palmer to mix the album certainly doesn’t hurt either.

Singer/guitarist Pete RG seemed very personable and happy to be playing, briefly introducing most songs and taking out a large camera at their set’s end, to document a photo of the enthusiastic crowd; of which, many new fans were recruited.

Straight out da trailer, Country, blues and rock singer/guitarist and Butte, MT native Tim Montana was up next, providing an energetic and raucous set that brought everyone to their feet. Montana’s newest is last July’s Savage (via Broken Bow Records) which is actually his sixth full-length, though is serving as his major debut release.

It’s something he kidded about, saying he’d left home at 18 trying to make it, also pledging to give things up, if he didn’t break by age 40, only to have this current record put him on the map…at age 39 ½.

Per his own taped stage intro, Montana’s musical influences run from A to Z… make that AC/DC to ZZ Top, with includes a stop in the middle for Kid Rock. Though a newer name to most, he’s been under ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons’ wing for some time, and has toured consistently, unafraid of playing smaller bars and clubs, so has a good handful of funny and touching road stories.

We caught Montana live previously in Kansas City in October and couldn’t wait to have him to return to the area again. Live, Montana seems to do it all and kept energy high, especially during a mesmerizing Country Blues run through of the Tupac/Dr. Dre rap classic, “California Love” (first encouraged to cover by Gibbons) which led into his own “Ashes” from the new record. Montana is absolutely one to watch and will likely graduate to bigger venues soon.

In front of a large backdrop depicting the artwork from his new solo album, Myles Kennedy and band took to the stage for their headlining set, starting things with the new album’s title track. For this tour, Kennedy is on the road as a power trio- backed by drummer and childhood friend Zia Uddin and bassist/manager Tim Tournier, which allows for a riff-filled set that is both intimate due to the three knowing each other so well, and also large-sounding and spanning with a superior audio mix that carried clearly though all locations and levels of the hall.

Fans of Kennedy (clearly representing in attendance) appreciate the chance to see him on this kind of solo tour, with his formidable guitar work more in the spotlight (compared to playing live with Slash and Alter Bridge’s Mark Tremonti) and hearing more from his three solo albums, which allow for more personal lyrics and ideas that would not work as well with the other bands he’s in.

The other noteworthy thing about his live performance, is how effortless it looks for him (and his band) to pull off; whether it be a complicated guitar solo, or a rise in his voice to a level that would make Robert Plant proud. We’re sure it’s deceptive to think this is all natural and isn’t achieved without endless hours of practice-makes-perfect, but the end result makes the difficult look somewhat easy.

Fans cheered for 2018’s “Devil on the Wall” from his first solo LP, and eagerly clapped along and into the next track, “A Thousand Words” from his 2021 second solo full-length. Near the halfway point, Kennedy was left alone onstage for a short acoustic set, a portion he said he takes during the show, to play whatever feels right at the moment. A deconstructed version of Alter Bridge’s “All Ends Well” a song he mentioned was almost never released followed, with the crowd hanging on to every lyric, erupting in applause once the last note was sung.

The three-piece then resumed with the blues leaning “Behind the Veil” which featured an extended guitar solo” with Kennedy focused- both smiling and with eyes closed, clearly showing it’s one of his favorite tracks to play live.

“Love Can Only Heal” from his first solo record, proved to be another crowd sing a-long and the main set would end with two of the strongest cuts from 2021’s “The Ides of March”- “Get Along” and “In Stride”.

With the winter storm quickly approaching outside, the encore was kept to a short but powerful single song from the new record, “Say What You Will” (not to be confused with the Fastway song of the same name) which found Kennedy singing, “I will not concede ’til my destiny Is etched in the sky with the stars”.

Coincidental but seemed most appropriate, both in looking at the large star-filled mural painted on the venue’s ceiling and walls and thinking of the Kansas state motto- “Ad astra per aspera” – a Latin phrase meaning “through difficulties- to the stars.”

The next show in Denver unfortunately had to be canceled as the streets outside had already frozen and coated with a glaze of ice (just ahead of four inches of snow), which made it more fortunate that the Liberty Hall crowd was able to see Myles Kennedy, Tim Montana, and Sons of Silver who each make it all look easy, while having fun along the way.