Review: Tom Rush and Matt Nakoa at the Eighth Step at Proctors GE Theatre, Saturday, October 18, 2025
A year ago, Tom Paxton (88) played the Eighth Step on his farewell tour; on Saturday, Tom Rush (84) played a low-key, subtle but strong show proving he has miles, and albums, still to go.
Paxton had played with the Don Juans, singer-songwriters Don Henry and Jon Vezner. They were to play Caffe Lena this week, until Vezner’s illness cancelled that show. But we digress.
Rush played Saturday with the generation-younger skilled singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist Matt Nakoa in a two-set show, each shining in solo spots as well as polished but unfussy duets.
Tom Rush, right; and Matt Nakoa
Recorded bluegrass antiques greeted the mostly boomer crowd filing into Proctors black-box GE Theatre; then Rush followed Margie Rosenkranz’s introduction to the stage and went straight for the funny-bone with the wry, fatalistic, bouncy “Making the Best of a Bad Situation.”
Matt Nakoa joined in for “Glory Road” – written 54 years ago but un-recorded until Nakoa as producer put it on “Gardens Old, Flowers New,” Rush’s 19th album since 1962. Nakoa shifted to a grand piano and synthesizer for “I Won’t Be Back At All.” This somber farewell moved slower than the preceding mid-tempo numbers and was the first of several to address aging and loss. That theme didn’t dominate, however, as Rush riffed through covers and originals, folk, blues and rock; and Nakoa shifted from guitar to keyboards and back. Rush spoke-sang its sad lyric, then spiced the chorus with a skat-yodel.
Rush introduced songs with stories, noting he’d met Joni Mitchell in 1966 and begged her for tunes to fill out an album two years overdue to set up her “Urge for Going.” Later he enviously marveled that Jackson Browne wrote “These Days” while only 16, adding “I hate him!” Self-deprecating, sly, he noted 7.5 million YouTube plays of “The Remember Song” hadn’t earned him a dime, but sounded genuinely grateful that “No Regrets” had put two of his children through college. This paean to fading memory also set up a tasty joke; after mourning misplaced keys, glasses, planner, his face went all mock-confused as the next verse should have arrived. As if forgetting the words, he just kept strumming until the audience got it.
His first set featured two Nakoa solo songs, both well-made and played with an earnestness that contrasted nicely with Rush’s ease. Sandwiched between Rush’s antique blues romp “Drop Down Mama” and “The Remember Song” goof, Nakoa’s “Holding Out Hope” and “Lightning” felt charmingly sincere.
Rush wrapped both sets with story songs, the railroad epic “Panama Limited” in the first and the hometown-warm “Merrimack County” in the second. He played skillful, unflashy bottleneck slide in “Panama,” and noted that, for all the appeal of his older tunes, “I’m writing better stuff, since” – a forward-looking assertion of purpose that would jump-start his second set.
He sang “Ladies Love Outlaw” in bold, assertive strength as he retook the stage, cueing Nakoa’s piano solo, “Let it happen, Cap’n” then asking “You done?” as he resumed singing. “These Days” eased back, into a warm poignance. Then, sounding every bit the Harvard English major he’d been when he started his career in Cambridge coffee-houses, he described the folk process as “musical Darwinism” – old tunes get new parts as succeeding generations sing them. This launched “The Cuckoo,” spiced with Nakoa guitar solos.
Nakoa’s second-set spot featured the cartoon-soundtrack piano piece “Tumbleweed Tango” that playfully went variously Latin until he raised his arms in flamenco-style triumph.
Rush took over for “What’s Wrong With America?” – perfect for No Kings Day with its mock lament that “the poor have too much and the rich don’t have enough.” The populist in Rush combined with the jokester to beautifully scornful effect as the crowd sang or laughed along.
Rush and Nakoa finished strong with the wistful farewell “No Regrets,” third song Rush ever wrote and covered by folk, rock, metal, even hip-hop artists. “Driving Wheel,” by contrast, was all regrets, but cloaked in delicious music, with Nakoa echoing Garth Hudson’s grand style in a soaring organ solo, beefy bass lines punching out from the other end of his synthesizer keyboard.
Rush set up “Merrimack County” with word-gems he collected from neighbors there, decorated with synthesizer drones and piano pointillism.
They didn’t bother leaving entirely before launching a rocking encore of “Bo Diddley,” whom Rush noted was among guests at his 2012 50th anniversary-in-show-business at Boston’s Symphony Hall. Rush and Nakoa rocked it for real, Rush dropping his mellow baritone into its lowest range for booming authority and going mock-pedantic near the end: “WHOM do you love?”
Rush first payed Symphony Hall in 1958; and he told the Boston Globe before his 2012 celebration there, “The artist plus the setting equal the experience, which is what people want.”
The Eighth Step, where he’s played since its days on Albany’s Willett Street church basement home, once again proved a comfortable, cozy setting for Rush’s easy-chair style, diverse repertoire, deceptively simple guitar picking, and Nakoa, an ace accompanist.
Set List
I: 7:34 – 8:35 p.m.
Making the Best of a Bad Situation (Rush solo)
Glory Road (Rush with Nakoa, guitar)
I Won’t Be Back at All (Rush with Nakoa, piano)
The Urge for Going (Rush with Nakoa, piano)
Drop Down Mama (Rush with Nakoa, piano)
Holding Out Hope (Nakoa solo, guitar)
Lightning (Nakoa solo, piano)
The Remember Song (Rush solo)
Sienna’s Song (Rush solo)
Panama Limited (Rush solo)
Intermission
II: 9:06 – 9:58 including encore
Ladies Love Outlaws (Rush with Nakoa, piano)
These Days (Rush with Nakoa, piano)
The Cuckoo (Rush with Nakoa, guitar)
Tumbleweed Tango (Nakoa, piano [no vocal])
What’s Wrong with America (Rush solo)
No Regrets (Rush solo)
Driving Wheel (Rush with Nakoa, piano)
Merrimack County (Rush with Nakoa, piano)
Bo Diddley (Rush with Nakoa, piano)
Hoke's Jukebox 