Watch Turnpike Troubadours Perform “The Bird Hunters” on ‘Austin City Limits’ Before Their Hiatus

Today, Turnpike Troubadours are on the road and stronger than ever. However, not long ago, fans weren’t sure if they’d ever see the Oklahoma-based band in the same room together, let alone on tour. After personal issues led to poor performances and a string of canceled shows, the band went on indefinite hiatus in 2019. Before things went bad, the band made their Austin City Limits debut.

Turnpike Troubadours took the Austin City Limits stage to record their set in December 2017. They had recently released their final pre-hiatus album A Long Way from Your Heart and pulled songs from the tracklist for their set. However, they didn’t limit themselves to playing new songs. They also went back through their catalog to deliver fan favorites. Watch them rock the ACL crowd with “The Bird Hunters” from their 2016 self-titled album below.

[RELATED: Top 10 Turnpike Troubadours Songs]

The episode of ACL featuring Chris Stapleton and Turnpike didn’t air until late 2018. When it did, “The Bird Hunters” wasn’t on the setlist. Instead, showrunners decided to make this track an online exclusive.

Evan Felker and R.C. Edwards on the Turnpike Troubadours Universe

In movies today, cinematic universes are a big trend. Turnpike Troubadours landed on building a universe with their music. A handful of characters appear several times throughout their first four albums. As a result, fans can draw connections between songs from different albums and put the stories together.

For instance, in “The Bird Hunters” the narrator mentions being happy to have his “hands around a Belgian-made Browning” shotgun. Then, in the track “The Housefire” from Long Way from Your Heart, the narrator is happy to have saved his grandfather’s Browning Auto-5 shotgun. That particular shotgun was made in Belgium from 1903 until 1973.

Evan Felker and R.C. Edwards talked about building a universe with reoccurring characters in an interview with Austin City Limits.

Felker revealed that Edwards talked him into creating the characters. “It was an idea we kicked around,” Edwards said. “Different writers we like did stuff like that like William Faulkner or Stephen King. They create their own little universe and you have these characters and towns and scenes. You don’t have to throw them away just because the story’s over. You can tell another story,” he added.

Felker said that it was “really effective” to get to tell multiple stories about the same characters. “They get to develop a bit. Then, once you get to that point maybe they develop some more. They do different things,” he explained. “I’ve been lucky to get to tool around with that.”

“Essentially, what I’m after is to not have to write a concept record to mess with these stories throughout my career,” he added.

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