Mule Pull ’25 is off and running! Tyler Childers launched his 2025 global tour at a packed concert in Auckland on February 6. It was six years since he last played in New Zealand’s largest city when – on February 27, 2019 - he opened for the great John Prine. Since then, much has changed.
Firstly, John Prine is gone. He died of COVID complications 14 months after the Auckland gig. And secondly, Childers is no longer an opening act. Others now do that - Willie Carlisle did so in Auckland - as the Kentucky singer-songwriter enjoys enormous success at sold-out concerts worldwide.
He has packed much into those six years, some of it personal baggage. He adopted sobriety and – whether consequential or coincidental – his career took off. In that time, he has released three albums - Long Violent History (2020), Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? (2022) and Rustin’ In The Rain (2023) - that were good enough to generate seven Grammy nominations.
He soon became an arena superstar. His 2024 tour – titled Mule Pull ’24 - kicked off in Ireland, before traversing the U.K. and then across the water to Germany, the Netherlands and gigs in Scandinavia. Then followed an extensive U.S. tour which included sold-out shows at Austin’s Moody Center, Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena and Madison Square Garden, New York.
There were 10 thousand adoring fans in Auckland for the 2025 blast off! And a blast it was, as Childers and his impressive seven-piece band were in full throttle. It was hardly neotraditional country - a tag the critics have attached to the Kentucky songwriter – but more fully-charged country rock.
Indeed, Childers looked somewhat of a contradiction, He was fully shaven and, adorned in a check-shirt and cardigan, he looked like he was set for evening in a comfy chair binging on re-runs of Friends. Instead he was surrounded by rowdy and rambunctious young sing-along fans who knew nearly every word to nearly every song he delivered
The Mule Pull 25 setlist remains much the same as ’24 with some subtle shuffling in the running order. But overall, Auckland was a Childers best-of show.
The band warmed up with “Shake the Frost” before Childers was in full stride with “Rustin’ In The Rain,” the title track to his last album, released in 2023. It was the turn of the fans to warm up when they joined in on “All You’n,” and were happy to do the same as Childers strapped on his acoustic guitar for the more sedate “Country Squire.”
As is now the norm at most of his shows, Childers let the band take a comfort break after 10 songs. He then chatted nonchalantly to the crowd in between acoustic versions of the fan-favourite “Lady May,” followed by “Nose on the Grindstone” and “Follow You to Virgie,” accompanied by some delighting guitar pickin’.
The return of the big band was a cue for perhaps the highlight of the night. For Childers then delivered an almost-reverent version of his most notable composition, the Grammy nominated single “In Your Love,” off his Rustin’ In The Rain. The son of a coal worker, Childers co-wrote the very-authentic song about two gay miners who fall in love in the 1950’s. The “In Your Love” promotional video, written by novelist and LGBTQ advocate Silas House, become somewhat of a sensation by generating more than 10 million video views.
Childers and the band then upped the ante with an intoxicating cover of the Hank Williams classic “Old Country Church.” Hank would have been stirring in his grave as the band turned his pure-country song into pure-country rock!
Soon came the popular title track off Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven ? and again Childers, with the help of multi-instrumentalist Jesse Wells, was at his inventive best, both vocally and lyrically:
Now you say if I quit drinkin’ and try to toe the line
I can make it up to glory at the end of my life
And while whiskey’s hard to throw away, it’s somethin’ I might try to do
If I could spend forever runnin’ hounds and treein’ coons
If I can’t take my hounds to Heaven, if I can hunt on God’s land
I’d rather load my dog box up and go to Hell with all my friends
By the time, Childers got to his final three numbers – “Way of the Triune God,” “House Fire,” “Universal Sound” - two of his band in particular were in full flight. Wells has been constantly swapping his guitar with the fiddle, broken strings and all, while James Barker, to the immediate left of Childers, was in one song head-down on the pedal steel and the next he was producing lead-guitar licks.
Added to the sophisticated musicianship, was some impressive animated artwork on the large back-screen, no better illustrated than on “House Fire”
when big red flames surrounded all on stage as Childers belted out:
You can set me house on fire baby
You can turn it into cinder and smoke
Cause this house is mighty cold and I feel like
Melting all the snow away.
It had certainly been a night of fire and brimstone.
Mule Pull ’25 now heads to Australia for 11 gigs, from Brisbane to Perth. Then it is back home for an already-scheduled 27-date tour which commences at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans on April 3. And he’ll be joined along the way with some big-time support, including Robert Earl Keen, Wynonna Judd and Charlie Crockett.
Paul Cutler
Editor Crossroads – Americana Music Appreciation
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