WILKES-BARRE — Sunday night at the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts was one of those magical evenings when every song was a bonafide classic and the show was one highlight after another.
That’s because legendary singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson was in town, and he brought along a fistful of his most memorable compositions.
“Hello, Wilkes-Barre,” he said after his opening number “Shipwrecked in the Eighties” from his 1986 album “Reposessed.”
“Please welcome Merle Haggard’s amazing band, The Strangers!”
The five-piece ensemble consisting of the late country icon’s sons Ben on lead guitar and vocals and Noel on acoustic guitar and vocals, along with keyboardist and vocalist Doug Colosio, drummer Jeff Ingraham, and Scott Joss on fiddle and vocals. Joss, who worked with Dwight Yoakam from 1988 to 2003 before hooking up with Haggard, took the first lead on Haggard’s “That’s The Way Love Goes.”
Kristofferson, the Rhodes scholar and Golden Globe-winning actor, is two months shy of his 83rd birthday and yet he still sounds as he did in the early 1970s when he was the most celebrated songwriter in Nashville.
You may remember other people’s versions of his songs better, such as Janis Joplin’s No. 1 take on “Me and Bobbie McGee” or Elvis Presley’s memorable concert recordings of “For the Good Times” or “Why Me,” but it was good to have them back in the hands of their creator on Sunday night.
Early highlights included “Darby’s Castle,” “Here Comes That Rainbow,” and “Best of All Possible Worlds,” plus the afforementioned “McGee.” He then got the crowd singing along with a spectacular rendition of “Help Me Make It Through The Night.”
Ben Haggard had the audience singing and whooping along to his father’s “Okie from Muskogee,” which featured Kristofferson taking over to sing the memorable lines about foregoing marijuana by drinking beer “and getting drunk like God wants us to do.”
Colosio chipped in a nifty rendition of Haggard’s “Daddy Frank” before Kristofferson took the show to intermission with a string of pearls including “Feeling Mortal,” “Broken Freedom Song,” and “Loving Her Was Easier.”
Kristofferson and the Strangers opened the second half with “Just the Other Side of Nowhere” and a great rendition of the underrated “I’d Rather Be Sorry.”
Haggard’s son Noel nearly stole the show with a rousing take on his father’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me” as the crowd cheered along with the patriotic number.
So Kristofferson pulled out his heavy hitters, starting with “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” and “Jesus Was a Capricorn.”
Joss sang lead for Haggard’s “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink,” which again had the crowd whooping along, so Kristofferson followed with “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and a gorgeous, sing-along version of “For the Good Times.”
He brought the evening to a close with a pleading “Why Me” (aka “Why Me Lord”), the only No. 1 hit of his own, and “Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends.”
“Thank you, Wilkes-Barre, God bless you,” he said as he strolled off stage with the rest of the band.
There was no encore on Sunday night, but it wasn’t necessary. Kristofferson and the Strangers had already given the audience an evening they will never forget.
