When confronted with another actor-turned-singer, a raft of questions immediately come up. Is it purely a plaything for the rich, or an artistic endeavour to be taken seriously on a par with all others? In the same way many scoff at the musical or acting careers of celebrities’ children, when Kiefer Sutherland stopped being Jack Bauer and started being an Americana-cum-country singer in the mid-2010s, similar queries were rightly raised.
Over half a decade since the release of debut album Down In a Hole, and with two more LPs having followed it, questions about Sutherland’s commitment to his new pursuit have surely been answered by now. This also might explain why Shepherds Bush Empire wasn’t close to full on Sunday night for the latest show on his UK tour, with the freshness and surprise of a Hollywood star strumming the guitar having worn off slightly over his six-year career. As he bounded onto the stage like an excitable puppy in west London though, Sutherland’s enthusiasm couldn’t be questioned, and it carried the show that followed.
Across his three albums (the most recent effort, Bloor Street, came out in January), Sutherland has slowly expanded his country beginnings into a more expansive Americana sound, and across a 19-song set, he presented Springsteen-esque rabble-rousers (Ole’ Lonely Life), dusty country rock about rodeoing through the United States (Reckless & Me, the title track of his second album from 2019) and more, all delivered in a strong, gravelly voice and backed by an excellent band who hit all the right notes with flair.
On stage, Sutherland was an exceedingly earnest figure, constantly sharing his gratitude for being able to tour post-pandemic, and telling stories before almost every song. Bloor Street is filled with “some of the happiest and most positive songs” of Sutherland’s career, as he told the crowd, and So Full of Love was the giddiest of these, a truly delightful song of gratitude.
After a dewy-eyed explanation ahead of the title track of Bloor Street, where Sutherland explained how all his firsts (job, kiss, fight) came on the Toronto road in question, he qualified: “I earned the right to go home and get nostalgic and write a song about it.” Whether all of this is indeed a frivolous hobby for him or not, you feel he really has earned it.
As he told the crowd early in the show, Sutherland doesn’t like to give people advice. If he did, though, it could be said through his soaring track Something You Love, and its lyric: “Life is way too short not to do something you love.” With an enormous grin hardly having left his face for the entire show, it was touching to see him taking his own advice and having the time of his life.
