Vince Gill kicked off his nationwide “50 Years From Home” tour with a three-hour show Thursday night at the Dr. Phillips Center in Orlando.
In those five decades, Gill has achieved enormous success with chart-topping hits and 22 Grammy Awards. In recent years, he has blended in seamlessly with the Eagles, helping fill the chasm left after the death of the band’s founder, Glenn Frey.
Gill has made it look easy. But the truth is, it was always very hard.
In the powerful show kicking off the tour, Gill shared stories about the struggle, not the success.
He was a teenage kid in Oklahoma when he elected to bypass college and instead landed a gig with a bluegrass band in Louisville, Ky.
“It took all I had to put that car in reverse and pull away, with my mom and dad standing on the front porch waving goodbye,” Gill told the audience.
He rented a little attic space for $15 a month in the Derby City, and while he didn’t know it at the time, his legendary career was off to the races.
He spotted a $2,500 guitar in the window of a store.
“It might as well have been $2.5 million,” he said.
Gill negotiated a deal that included giving up one of his existing guitars and paying $1,650 for the coveted C.F. Martin guitar, depleting the last of the money he’d saved for college. It turned out to be a great investment. That guitar remains a part of his collection.
His concert at Dr. Phillips Center showcased that collection, including a few guitars that he has been playing since the 1970s. His show did not feature the high-energy video montage you see in the background of so many shows today, even though Gill’s certainly got a vault loaded with five decades’ worth of video treasure. Instead, there were banners showing off the lucky seven guitars that made the final cut for this tour.
In 1978, Gill got a big break when he joined the band Pure Prairie League.
He told the audience at Dr. Phillips’ Walt Disney Theater that the band was performing at Disney World in Orlando when the thrill of the moment got the best of him.
“We were getting ready to go back out on stage for an encore and we were going to do a couple of rockers. I was backstage and opened up a closet and found all these Disney costumes,” Gill said.
He discovered the head for the Jiminy Cricket costume.
“I decided, ‘I’m going back out as Jiminy Cricket,’” Gill said.
As he was about to step back on stage, a Disney employee “tackled” him.
“He said, ‘You’ll scare the kids,’” Gill recalled.
The show included all his biggest hits: “I Still Believe in You,” “Tryin’ to Get Over You,” “When I Call Your Name” and, of course, “Go Rest High on That Mountain.”
Yet, dusting off the seldom-remembered “Old Lucky Diamond Motel” proved to be a high point of the evening. That hotel was once located on old Route 66, where Gill remembered riding his bicycle as a child.
There’s plenty of nostalgia in the lyrics:
Yeah the old Lucky Diamond, Lucky Diamond Motel
The Queen of the old mother road
There’s color TV and the kids eat for free
At the old Lucky Diamond Motel
And a little bit of confession.
Room 23 was the first time for me
A stripper named Rita Cantrell
I spent all of my money on that sweet Spanish honey
At the old Lucky Diamond Motel
With a wink, Gill hinted it was a true story.
Gill’s 10-piece band included members who have been making music with him for decades. Remembering his powerful yearning for the spotlight in his early days, Gill generously provided solos for members of his talented team during the show, which powered forward without an intermission. Taking a bathroom break during the solos would have been a mistake. The band members’ solos brought the show to greater heights. Gill’s longtime backup singer Wendy Moten absolutely stole the show with a searing, bluesy version of “Ode to Billie Joe.” Gill didn’t sing along but added plenty of scorch to the mournful song with his guitar.
At 69, Gill talked about how precious life is to him. He shared stories of conversations with his 100-year-old mother and sang about the painful loss of his childhood friend Benny Garcia, who worked as his guitar tech for 30 years. When Garcia was in hospice, Gill got the word and floored it from Nashville back home to Oklahoma. He didn’t make it in time, but was there at dawn to wheel his old friend’s body out of the home. Gill wrote the song “Little Brother” in Garcia’s honor. His rendition of that song drove home the importance of Gill’s Oklahoma roots.
Gill also sprinkled in mentions of his wife of 26 years, Amy Grant.
While Gill was at the top of the charts when he met Grant, many of his fans were likely unaware he was at an emotional crossroads.
“She came along at just the right time,” Gill shared.
Gill’s tour includes some Florida dates, including Fort Myers, Sarasota and St. Augustine.