An Evening with Willy Vlautin – The Sugar Club – Review

By Killian Laher

There was a full house at the Sugar Club for an audience with writer Willy Vlautin.  Ostensibly to launch his recent novel The Horse, the show started out with an interview with Vlautin by the acclaimed Irish writer Roddy Doyle.  Doyle was unassuming and self-deprecating while equally, Willy Vlautin came across as humble and down to earth.  They shared their experiences of writing, and the challenges of the world of screenplays.  Vlautin shared that if he had to choose between music and writing novels, he’d choose the novels, while Roddy Doyle revealed that if he had been in a band, it would have been Steely Dan which got a somewhat mixed reaction from the audience!

After this Vlautin returned to the stage to perform some of his ‘uplifting’ (as he put it) songs on solo guitar.  Opening with $87 Dollars and a Guilty Conscience, he played a mixture of Richmond Fontaine and Delines songs with a little discussion about each one as to how he wrote it.  One of the highlights was him doing ‘his David Lynch thing’ playing Lost In The Trees from 2011’s gothic noir album The High Country.  A heartfelt Don’t Skip Out On Me and The Oil Rigs At Night had echoes of the quieter moments of vintage, late 60s Rolling Stones.  He also played Maryanne’s In The Mental Ward, a song the main character in The Horse, Al Ward, wrote, so Vlautin suggested he is stealing from himself!

After an audience Q&A, Willy Vlautin reappeared to sign books, records and meet his fans.  Was a highly entertaining evening and the word is Vlautin will return next year with the Delines.